
i'i<i:si;nti;i) in' 



JOURNALS AND REMINISCENCES 



DOUGLAS 




-<^Wc-<^4^^. 



JOURNALS AND REMINISCENCES 



OF 



JAMES DOUGLAS, M.D. 



EDITED BY HIS SON 




PRIVATELY PRINTED 
NEW YORK 
1910 



Two hundred and fifty copies 
printed for private distribution 



.\P 



K 









THE TORCH PRESS 
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction 9 

Chapter I Boyhood and Apprenticeship 

TO Dr. Low 15 

Chapter II A Whaling Voyage to Spitz- 

BERGEN IN 1818 25 

Chapter III A Year in India ... 71 

Chapter IV In Medical Charge of the Poy- 
Ais Settlement 85 

Chapter V His Active Professional Ca- 
reer 121 

Chapter VI Reminiscences of One of His 
Old Students 163 

Chapter VII Ill-Health, Retirement from 
Practice, and Travel .... 179 

Chapter VIII One of the Founders and Man- 
ager OF THE Quebec Lunatic Asylum . 193 

Chapter IX His Friends — Sane and Insane 227 

Chapter X As a Temperance Advocate and 
Lecturer 239 

Chapter XI Conclusion .... 247 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Portrait frontispiece 

Quebec Lunatic Asylum in 1850 . . . 205 
Cartoon from **Diogenies" .... 216 
Portrait — At the Age of Eighty-five . 245 



INTRODUCTION 

The following sketch of the life of my father is in 
part autobiographical and part drawn from my own 
recollections. 

He was bom with the Nineteenth Century and 
lived till its eighty-sixth year. His earliest recollections 
were of the boisterous rejoicings over Nelson's great 
victory at Trafalgar. He was a surgeon's appren* 
tice when Waterloo was fought. His first professional 
employment was in 1818 as surgeon to a whaler, which 
was fortunate in penetrating the Arctic Circle nearer 
to the North Pole than any ships prior to that date, 
except those under the command of Sir John Ross. 
So near did he live to the empire-making epoch of the 
eighteenth century that Warren Hastings had not been 
dead two years when he entered the service of the 
East India Company. He knew Carey and Marsh- 
man and therefore witnessed the early efforts of mod- 
em missionary enterprise and its success toward secur- 
ing the abolition of sutteeism and other cruel customs. 
He was one of the first pupils of Robert Liston, the 
father of modern surgery and one of the first to apply 
his teachings on this continent. He thus not only 
witnessed but took a humble part in the great revolu- 



10 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

tion by which surgery has been bereft of its terrors, 
which has mitigated the horrors of the operating table 
by the introduction of anesthetics, and whose crown- 
ing triumph has been the application of antiseptics, 
rendering it possible for the modem surgeon to per- 
form operations which, despite the greater dexter- 
ity of his predecessor it would have been sheer murder 
on his part to attempt. He also, though not a 
homeopathist, rejoiced in the victory of the rational 
school of medicine, which banished from the pharma- 
copoeia a host of magical drugs, and from the prac- 
tice of physic those copious and noxious doses, unless 
drenched with which our forefathers considered them- 
selves neglected by their family physician and unless 
supplied with which they considered themselves de- 
frauded of the tangible value for which they paid 
their medical attendant so much per annum. After 
a short residence in the East Indies the impulse of 
independence and the promise of higher pay tempted 
him in 1824 to join, as surgeon and physician, one of 
those ill-considered and ill-fated colonization expedi- 
tions to Central America, for which British enthusi- 
asm over the emancipation of Spanish America from 
the rule of England's old rival, Spain, made it so 
easy for speculative promoters between 1820 and 1830 
to gain support from the British public. How this 
failed, by what a strange chain of accidents he came 
finally to settle in Canada, after a short residence 
in Utica, fills the most interesting and profitable 
chapter of his active life. 

Thus, and in a hundred other ways, he saw the old 
system of government, of social and commercial life 



INTKODUCTION 11 

and of science, pass away and give place to the new. 
One generation after another was born and died while 
he lived on; but the longer he lived the more his 
thoughts reverted to the past, which to us was history, 
but to him was more real than the present. 

In this shifting scene he played a very inconspicu- 
ous part. He possessed intellectual ability and force 
of will which would have made him a leader of men, 
had be been ambitious and had he sought a sphere 
where the full blaze of publicity would have fallen 
upon him; for in the practice of his own profession 
of surgery he was original and skilful to an eminent 
degree. And when he undertook any public work or 
advocated any public measure, which, however, he did 
only when the work or the measure fell within the 
sphere of his professional activity, he threw his whole 
strength into the enterprise or its advocacy, with such 
impulsive energy that he bore down all opposition and 
carried his point by sheer force of attack. Though 
overbearing, there lay in his nature a depth of ten- 
derness, which never came to the surface more at- 
tractively than in the presence of pain. "While intol- 
erant of disobedience or querulousness on the part of 
his patients, many a sufferer lay in unrest for hours 
waiting for his visit and for the luxury of being lifted 
and turned by his strong arms, and encouraged by 
his unfaltering and sincere opinion, even if adverse. 
His office was a clinic for the poor, long before the 
word was used in its present sense. One reason why 
he inspired confidence was that he never exhibited that 
doubt as to what is the matter with their patients, 
which some unfortunate practitioners cannot conceal, 



12 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

and which all very often feel. He acted always up to 
the wise maxim : 

Look wise, 

Say nothing, 

An unerring way 

When doctors nothing have to say. 
He shunned popularity. He wrote a clear and con- 
cise style, yet never contributed a single article to 
even a medical journal. He was a fascinating story 
teller and a consummate actor, and with practice 
would have been an able speaker; yet he foreswore 
politics, both municipal and national, during the years 
of his active professional life. Nor did he thus isolate 
himself from indolence, but from obedience to self- 
imposed rules of life. He looked upon himself as the 
servant of his patients and at liberty to follow no ex- 
traneous occupation, and to allow his mind to be dis- 
tracted by no pursuit which might absorb the time 
and thought which he considered to be theirs, without 
subtraction. He was a superb man, endowed not only 
with remarkable gifts of mind, but a massive and well- 
balanced frame. Every feature of the face, the size 
and contour of the head, even the bushy crop of hair, 
which refused to be smoothed, but stood erect and 
defiant, bespoke strength of purpose and activity of 
intellect. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, after once meeting him, 
said he did not know whether most to fear or to ad- 
mire him, but that in his head and figure he was the 
nearest approach to a Jupiter Olympus of any man 
he had ever seen. He had many of the qualities of 
greatness, for his character possessed the elements out 



INTRODUCTION 13 

of which either a man of wide professional repute or 
a statesman of commanding influence might have been 
compounded, and therefore those who knew him well 
wondered that he remained obscure. Perhaps he 
knew himself better than others knew him, and may 
have suspected that the strong properties of his nature 
were mingled with others so inconsistent that the re- 
sultant was a character too eccentric and full of con- 
tradictions to bear the scrutiny of the public eye. It 
is just such anomalies that give individuality to human 
life. They make some public men picturesque, but 
they more often make them dangerous. Not a little 
of the evil work of the world is done by its strong men, 
honest and conscious of their perfect integrity, but 
using their strength amiss under the impulse of some 
extravagant whim, grotesque fancy, or overweening 
confidence in the infallibility of their judgment. 

He left these fragments of his recollections of his 
life, but they were written when he was more than 
seventy years of age and when his memory and 
descriptive powers had become unfortunately im- 
paired. If he could but have thrown into his narra- 
tive the phrases, emphasis and gesture which made 
him so attractive as a story-teller, his reminiscences 
would have been unique. But alas, the fine flavor of 
conversation is as incommunicable as tact and experi- 
ence. Mere words cannot preserve them. They die 
with us, just as there dies with an old doctor, the more 
perhaps is the pity, that marvelous medical skill and 
keen instinct, which a practitioner, who has been for 
half a century in contact with disease, acquires, he 
knows not how, and which he cannot describe or com- 



14 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

municate. It must be buried with him, to be gathered 
afresh through experience by the next generation. 
It is perhaps weU that it should be so, for with it is 
buried all his prejudices and faulty conclusions. 

James Douglas 



CHAPTER I 

HIS BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP TO A SURGEON 

**Now on the verge of seventy-nine years I realize 
that time has told and is daily telling upon my men- 
tal and physical powers. Some of them have been 
cut off by it altogether, and some are fading away.'* 
Thus my father prefaced the story of his life. His 
recollections of long-past events were vivid, and they 
are confirmed by journals which he kept of three 
of his earliest professional engagements. 

My father's narrative commences in the conven- 
tional way: 

*'In writing an autobiography, it is usual to give 
an account of the writer's progenitors. In accord- 
ance with this custom, I have to state that my Father 
was the Son of Mr. Richard Douglas, a Gentleman 
who had retired with a competence from business as 
an Architect and Builder. My recollections of my 
paternal Grandfather, are of a tall old Gentleman, 
with a white wig, and a gold headed cane, who used 
to interest me with accounts of his acquaintance and 
intercourse with John Wesley. He died at Winlaton, 
at the age of ninety-eight. My Father was his sec- 
ond son, born in 1769, brought up among the early 



16 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

followers of Jolm Wesley, and having personal knowl- 
edge of that remarkable man, he became strongly at- 
tached to him, and to his doctrines. I cannot do 
better than give an extract from the minutes of the 
Wesleyan Conference of 1853, which announced my 
Father's death: 

** 'His earliest associations being with John Wesley 
and his followers, and being also greatly influenced 
by the councils and the Christian example of his 
Mother, he united himself with the Methodists, and, 
at the Conference of 1793 was appointed to a Circuit, 
and continued humbly, laboriously, and faithfully, to 
discharge his duties as a Christian Minister. While 
praying with a dying woman, he was seized with 
paralysis, and exchanged mortality for life, on Feb- 
ruary, 1853, in the 89th year of his life, and in the 
60th of his Ministry , .' 

''During the years 1798-9 and six years after his 
induction into the Ministry, my Father was sta- 
tioned at Aberdeen, in Scotland, and there became 
acquainted with Mr. James Mellis, a retired Brewer, 
whose wife, nee Mary Stuart, was of an old Roman 
Catholic family ; they had two Children, a son and a 
daughter. As was usual then, as now, the Son accom- 
panied his Father to the Scotch Church, and the 
daughter went with her Mother to the Catholic 
Church. However, 'Amor vincit omnia.' Miss Mary 
Mellis became the Wife of the Rev. George Douglas. 
They were married in Aberdeen on the 4th day of 
July, 1799, by the Rev. Rt. Doig, and I was bom in 
Brechin in Angus, on 20th of May, 1800, and my 
birth is registered in the City of Aberdeen. Dur- 



BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP 17 

ing the thirteen years subsequent to my birth, my 
Father was stationed successively in Brechin, in the 
Isle of Man, in Carlisle, and in Dumfries, in which 
two latter places I received the principal part of 
my education. 

"My Father was very fond of rod fishing and 
among my early recollections are those of accompany- 
ing him on his fishing excursions. At Carlisle, and 
at Dumfries, there was capital trout fishing, but, as 
a Methodist Minister could not well be seen going 
thro' the Streets with a rod and a basket, I had al- 
ways to join him at the rivers side with these neces- 
saries.'' 

My grandfather left a short account of himself. 
Judging from it, his life was spent in one long process 
of introspection and self -dissection. Judging from 
my father's account of him, he was a kindly, con- 
siderate and a very hard working, earnest, simple 
minded man, not without his weaknesses and foibles ; 
ruled by his children rather than ruling them. When 
I saw him, only a month before his death, he looked 
like John Wesley personified. 

He had the same strong features we are so familiar 
with in the likeness of John Wesley that prefaced 
his hymn book. His hair was long and flowed in 
thick white curls over his shoulders. The old gentle- 
man, though in his 89th year, was vigorous in body 
but much enfeebled in mind. His only literary work 
had been collecting religious anecdotes. Early in 
the last century religious anecdotes were as popular 
among those attached to evangelicalism as were the 
Percy anecdotes in secular circles. His collection 



18 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

filled several volumes and passed througli several 
editions. The anecdotes were grouped under head- 
ings in the usual disjointed manner of compilations 
of that kind, the doings and sayings of saints side 
by side with those of sinners, each anecdote carrying 
its appropriate theological moral. 

Napoleon Bonaparte and Lady Huntington, though 
in very different spheres, had been both prominent 
characters in his day and afforded material for many 
of his anecdotes. When I had the privilege of being 
with him, just before his death, he spent hours tell- 
ing me stories, all composed of the shattered frag- 
ments of his old stock, linked together in the most 
grotesque and incongruous combination. Napoleon 
and Lady Huntington were still uppermost in his 
mind, and they figured together in the same narrative 
in exquisitely amusing situations. As in the case 
of most aged people the imagination survived the 
memory. When the dear old gentleman went in 
search of his hat and cane to visit his parishioners, 
all of whom had been for a generation in their 
graves, the only means of diverting him was to give 
him a clew which started him on a round of his 
anecdotes. 

My father's Journal continues: 

** During the winter of 1812-13, I was sent to the 
Wesleyan College at Woodhouse Grove in Yorkshire, 
and there placed in Sallust; certainly, I was in the 
first class, but, having left the Academy in Dumfries, 
where I was advanced in Virgil, I found myself 
losing time. Having in vain urged my Father to re- 



BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP 19 

move me, I took French leave, and started for Dum- 
fries on foot." 

The father submitted to what the boy of twelve 
dictated, to the irreparable injury of the char- 
acter of the lad and the future man. A strong dis- 
position, uncontrolled in early life, became in later 
life objectionably wilful. When under the strain 
of overwork, and when irritated by confreres, who 
were professionally his inferiors, he was apt to 
yield to unbecoming displays of temper and to of- 
fensive arbitrariness. An unhesitating reliance on his 
own judgment remained as a prominent trait of his 
character. And he possessed to an eminent degree 
the faculty of self-justification which accompanies 
most self-reliant natures. The Journal continues: 

''At the ensuing Conference, my Father was sta- 
tioned at Penrith in Cumberland, and I was bound 
there for five years, as an apprentice to Dr. Thomas 
Law, an uncle of the late Lord Ellenborough. My 
endenture is dated on October 3rd, 1813. 

''Penrith was in the centre of the Lake country. 
The county was studded with the castles, the halls, 
and the mansions of many of the nobility and gentry — 
the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Lonsdale, Earl 
Thanet, Lady Brougham, Sir Henry Dacre, and others. 
As Dr. Law was the principal Medical Man, he as 
was then the custom, made up and dispensed his own 
prescriptions, I therefore found myself fully occupied. 

"Medical pupillage in England sixty years ago, was 
different to what it now is, and very different indeed 
to what it is in Canada. A statement of my duties 
and my privileges as an apprentice, will best illustrate 



20 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

this. During the second year of my time, I had 
charge of the Surgery, and made up the prescriptions. 
I had to visit the pauper class, as well in the country 
as in the town, and to report on any emergency or on 
the appearance of any grave symptom. Unless occu- 
pied in the Surgery, I was allowed between eight and 
nine o'clock in the evening for recreation, and occa- 
sionally a day's holiday, for trout fishing in the river 
Eamont, or in one of the neighbouring lakes, or for 
rook-shooting in the woods of Lowther Castle or of 
Brougham Hall. 

**As perquisites, I had the shilling, which was the 
fee for blood-letting or tooth-drawing. That for 
blood-letting particularly was very remunerative as 
it was the custom of the country people, generally to 
be bled every Spring, and of many, every Spring and 
Autumn. These perquisites, during three and a half 
years of my apprenticeship rendered me independent 
of my Father, for the expense of clothes and pocket 
money. In the Autumn of 1818, having completed 
my indenture, I left Penrith with many pleasant 
reminiscences of the time I had spent there, and of the 
kindness of Dr. Law and of his amiable wife. 

'*I am not generally a laudator temporis acti, but 
I must say, that, in my opinion, the training of Medi- 
cal Students sixty years ago, was calculated to turn 
out more efficient and practical men, than the system 
of pupillage of the present day. The former gave 
them a more thorough and minute knowledge of the 
materia medica, and of its use and effects in grave dis- 
ease, as well as in trifling ailments ; it moreover gave 
them habits of thought, of reflection, and of self -re- 



BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP 21 

liance and responsibility, which were a solid ground 
work for general practice. In Minor Surgery, the 
training of the pupil in the treatment of injuries, in 
the application of bandages, and in the numerous little 
offices for alleviating the effects of disease, gave him, 
as a general practitioner, a great advantage over a 
student, whose medical and surgical education is re- 
stricted to lectures, and to witnessing the ordinary 
practice in the wards of an hospital, — whose knowl- 
edge of drugs is confined to books, and who is unable 
to distinguish between arsenic, tartar emetic, and com- 
mon salt." 

Dr. Law cancelled the indenture on September 1, 
though it did not expire till October 3, that my 
father might spend a month at home before enter- 
ing himself as a student of medicine at Edinburgh. 
The original of his indenture is in my possession. It 
is as follows: 

INDENTURE DULY MADE ON THE 3IID DAY OF OC- 
TOBER, 1813 APPRENTICING James Douglas, Son of 
the Reverend George Douglas of Penrith, Cumberland, to 
Thomas Law, Surgeon and Apothecary, for the term of five 
years. 

THIS INDENTURE Made the third Day of October in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirteen 
Between The Reverend George Douglas of Penrith in the 
County of Cumberland And James Douglas of the same place 
the son of the said George Douglas of the one part and Thomas 
Law of the same place Surgeon and Apothecary of the other 
part WITNESSETH That the said James Douglas of his own 
free Will and by and with the Licence and Consent of the 
said George Douglas his natural and lawful father and Guard- 
ian testified by his being a party to and Signing and sealing 
these presents Hath put placed and bound himself Apprentice 



22 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

to the said Thomas Law to learn and be taught the trade art 
mystery or business of a surgeon Apothecary and Man- 
midwife V^Haich he the said Thomas Law now practices and 
to continue with and serve him as an apprentice from the 
day of the date of these presents for and during and unto 
the full end and term of five years from thence next ensuing 
and fully to be completed and ended. AND the said George 
Douglas Doth for himself his Heirs Executors and Adminis- 
trators and for each and every of them and for the said James 
Douglas his Son Covenant promise and agree to and with the 
said Thomas Law his Executors Administrators and Assigns 
by these presents in manner and form following (that is to 
say) 

That he the said James Douglas shall and will diligently 
and faithfully serve him the said Thomas Law, his Secrets 
keep, his lawful Commands do and perform, Damage to his 
said Master he shall not do nor Willingly permit to be done 
by others, the goods of his said Master he shall not Waste, 
nor lend them without his Consent to any, he shall neither 
buy nor sell without his Masters leave, Taverns Inns or Ale- 
houses he shall not frequent. At Cards Dice or any unlawful 
game he shall not play, Fornication Commit nor Matrimony 
contract nor from the service of his said Master Day or night 
shall Absent himself, but in all things as an honest and faith- 
ful apprentice shall and will demean and behave himself 
towards his said Master and all his during all the said term 
of five years. ALSO That he the said George Douglas shall 
and will during all the said Term of five years find provide 
and allow for the said James Douglas his son sufficient and 
proper Meat Drink Wearing Apparel Washing and Lodging 
AND the said Thomas Law in Consideration of the premises 
and for and in Consideration of the Sum of five Shillings of 
good and lawful money of the United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland Current in England in hand well and 
truly paid by the said George Douglas at or before the sign- 
ing and sealing of these preesnts The Receipt Whereof is 
hereby Acknowledged Doth for himself his Heirs Executors 
and Administrators and for each and every of them covenant 
promise and agree to and with the said George Douglas and 



BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP 23 

James Douglas That he the said Thomas Law according to the 
best of his power skill and knowledge shall and will teach 
and Instruct or cause to be taught and Instructed him the 
said James Douglas in the said Trade, Art, Mystery and busi- 
ness of a Surgeon Apothecary and Man Midwife and in all 
things Whatsoever incident and belonging thereto in such 
manner as he the said Thomas Law now or at any time here- 
after during the said term of five years shall use practice 
teach or deal in the same IN WITNESS WHEREOF the said 
parties to these presents have hereunto set their hands and 
seals the day and year first above written. 
Signed Sealed and delivered 
(being first duly stamp't) 

GEORGE DOUGLAS (SEAL) 
(Sd) Henry Law JAS. DOUGLAS (SEAL) 

(Wm.) Jackson THO. LAW (SEAL) 

Penrith Sept. 1, 1818. 

I hereby certify that James Douglas has faithfully com- 
pleted his Apprenticeship to this day and that I give him the 
remainder of his service that he may visit his Father and 
Friends. 

Tho. Law. 



CHAPTER II 

STUDIES MEDICINE IN EDINBURGH AND SPENDS HIS 
SUMMER HOLIDAYS AS SURGEON OP A SPITZBERGEN 
WHALER 

The Journal gives with some detail the account 
of his first years at Edinburgh University : 

* ' In October, 1818, I arrived in Edinburgh, and took 
lodgings with a respectable widow in Niddry Street. 
My menage was of an humble description, I paid 
four shillings a week for my room, lodging, and cook- 
ing; I found myself; and on the whole, I passed the 
winter comfortably. My curriculum at the Univer- 
sity, comprised the practice of the Hospital, the lec- 
tures on the practice of Physic by Dr. Gregory,— on 
Chemistry by Dr. Hope,— on Obstetrics by Dr. Ham- 
ilton and on Anatomy by Dr. Barclay. My memo- 
ries of these professors are very vivid. Dr. Gregory 
was a magnificent specimen of a Scottish gentleman; 
tall, stately and dignified, urbane in manner, and with 
the faculty of impressing his class with the matter 
of his lecture. Dr. Hope conveyed an impression of 
extreme self importance. He was intolerant of the 
least noise or interruption, and perceiving this, the 
scamps of students took advantage of it, by stamp- 



26 MY FATHEK'S JOURNAL 

ing, and making noisy demonstrations on the result of 
each experiment. Dr. Hamilton was a small and rather 
fidgety gentleman, very impressive in manner, and a 
good lecturer. There was another Dr. Hamilton, a 
square built, stately old gentleman with a cocked 
hat, and a dress of ancient cut ; he was distinguished 
from Dr. G. Hamilton, the Obstetrician, by the sob- 
riquet of Cocky Hamilton. But my beau ideal of 
a lecturer was Dr. Barclay, a quaint, active, and im- 
pulsive little man, who gave two separate and distinct 
courses of lectures each session, one of them at 11 
A. M., and another at 6 P. M. daily. He went into the 
matter of his lecture and demonstrations with his 
whole heart and soul. In the middle of a demonstra- 
tion, if he had occasion to refer to some authority, 
he would take the scalpel between his teeth, while 
he turned over the leaves of the book. ' ' 

Short as the session was, he cut it shorter to accept 
the position of surgeon to a Greeland whaler. 

His Journal of that, to him, eventful voyage was 
published in the Transactions of the Literary and 
Historical Society of Quebec for 1873, and was con- 
sidered of sufficient interest by that most critical of 
weeklies, the Saturday Review, to deserve a long 
article, in which the information it contained was 
summarized with considerable amplitude. The critic 
says: "We have before us the 'Transactions of the 
Literary and Historical Society of Quebec' for the 
session of 1873. . . . Perhaps the most interest- 
ing paper in this series is the 'Journal of an Arctic 
Voyage' made by the surgeon of a whaler fifty-five 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 27 

years ago. The stripling of nineteen years, who was 
thus entrusted with the health and lives of fifty men, 
is now an M. D. of seventy-four, and cherishes in a 
Canadian home the memories of a youth passed in 
Britain. The author sailed from Hull, which was 
then largely concerned in whaling. It is not wonder- 
ful that the supply of northern whales should have 
failed under the systematic persecution of which this 
Journal furnishes an example. Even the surgeon 
had an interest in the fishery, being entitled to a 
guinea on every whale caught. The government al- 
lowed a bounty. The system of bounties has been 
long since condemned, but if any trade deserved 
encouragement it was that of whaling, without which 
scientific voyages to the Polar Sea would not have 
been made.'' 

I reproduce the Journal, omitting a few unimpor- 
tant paragraphs: 

A WHALING VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN IN 1818. 
By JAMES DOUGLAS, M.D. 

[The perusal of a journal which was kept in high northern 
latitudes fifty-five years ago, may not be without interest 
at this time, when so great attention is being given to the 
late discoveries in the Arctic regions, and to the expeditions 
now being fitted out in the confident hope of reaching the 
North Pole, through the open water which is supposed to 
exist to the north of Spitzbergen. 

This journal is given verbatim et literatim, as written at 
the time; and allowance must be asked for it as the unaided 
production of a youth of eighteen years of age, who went out 
as surgeon of a whaler, which, in pursuit of the objects of 
its voyage, reached the high northern latitude of 81. 

It w!\.a written currente calamo, without any pretensions 



28 MY FATHEK'S JOURNAL 

to style or scientific knowledge, and without any idea of its 
being seen by any excepting the members of the writer's own 
family. 

The intrepid Arctic navigators — ^the brothers Dannatt, the 
Scoresbys (father and son), Capt. Sadler, and others, who 
navigated the Polar regions at the close of the last century 
and at the early part of the present, have passed away, and, 
excepting the younger Scoresby, have left no record behind 
them. I perfectly recollect, however, that Capt. Ed. Dannatt 
and Capt. Ashe expressed their belief in the existence of 
land at or in the vicinity of the Pole. They based their 
belief on the appearance of the heavy ice and on the detached 
icebergs which, during the summer season, were drifted by 
the current to the southward.] 



While a medical student in Edinburgh, during the winter 
session of 1818, I received an appointment as surgeon of the 
ship Trafalgar, of Hull, Captain E. Dannatt, commander, 
during a voyage to the Arctic regions; and at the same time 
was notified to report myself at Hull on or before the 12th 
March, for the purpose of submitting myself to the medical 
examiner appointed by Government to examine into the 
qualifications and fitness of candidates. This examination 
is not very strict, and consisted in ascertaining that I had 
served an apprenticeship of five years to Dr. Tho. Law (an 
uncle of Lord Ellenborough ) , and that I had parsed a session 
at college in Edinburgh. However, with my certificate of 
qualification, I entered into office at once, at a salary of four 
guineas a month, one guinea for every whale caught, and one 
guinea for every thousand seals killed. I was supplied with 
everything needful, with the exception of clothes and bedding. 

March 13th. — The King's ofiicers came on board this morn- 
ing and mustered the crew, to the number of 36. This is done 
by the Government, which allows a bounty of £300 to each 
ship, as well as the spirits, tea, coffee, sugar, and all other 
dutiable articles, duty free. On their part, the owners are 
bound to carry and man at least seven boats, with seven men 
to each boat. As this, during war-time, is difficult, and as 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 29 

Government is extremely desirous to encourage the fishery, it 
exempts the requisite number of harpooneers, boat-steerers, 
and other skilled hands, from the press-gang; and obliges 
the owners to fill up the requisite crew by taking Shetland- 
men, in passing: these are a hardy race of men, and, from 
their almost amphibious habits, are admirably adapted for 
boat-work. 

The fresh provisions and other stores being got on board, 
the Trafalgar left dock, passed the Spurn-lights with a fair 
wind, and got fairly to sea with a light S.W. wind, which 
continued until the 20th, when we made Fair Island, a very 
rocky, barren, and mountainous-looking place, inhabited by a 
few poor fishermen, who certainly surprised me by their faculty 
of keeping their souls and bodies together. In the afternoon 
of the same day, Sunbrough Head, the most southerly point 
of Shetland, came in sight; and we were boarded by a pilot, 
who took us in due time into Brassa Sound. During my 
stay in Lerwick I was most hospitably entertained by Mr. 
Morrison, an agent, who made my stay there a very agreeable 
one. Next day being Sunday, I attended divine service, where 
I heard a most eloquent and impressive sermon by a venerable 
old man, in a church far inferior in architectural beauty to 
an ordinary barn. 

The whole trade of Lerwick is carried on between it and 
Leith in two small sloops, which take to Leith eggs, poultry, 
stockings, and salted geese, — bringing back such necessaries 
as they require. Lerwick is principally noted as the ren- 
dezvous of the Greenland-men on their way to and from the 
north, and as the place where their crews are completed. 
On Thursday I took an excursion inland for a few miles, and 
was amply repaid for the want of roads by some of the most 
rugged and romantic scenery I had ever seen. 

On returning to the ship I found all hands busy in prepar- 
ing the ship for the ice. Some were bending gaff-topsails and 
fixing booms to the main and fore sails, striking the royal 
masts, and generally putting the ship into such a condition 
that at any time, and particularly when in the ice or very 
short-handed, the ship could be worked with very few hands. 
Others were fitting out a machine called a crow's-nest, to be 



30 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

placed on the top of the main-top-gallant-mast, to protect 
the man on the look-out when the ship is in the ice. This 
crow's-nest, as it is called, looks like an old-fashioned pulpit; 
it is made out of a cask or puncheon, well lined with skins 
or Eusso mats; the very top of the top-gallant-mast serves 
as a seat; a shifting weather-board protects the look-out, who 
is able to get in by thrusting himself through a trap-door 
in the bottom. The whole affair looks extremely cosy and 
comfortable. Others of the men were engaged hanging up 
quarters of fresh beef and other meat, — among which were a 
number of legs of mutton intended for the owners and their 
friends on the return of the ship to Hull. In the evening, 
as a boat was pushing off from the stairs, two men jostled 
and fell overboard; one was at once picked up. When pushing 
off a second time, one of the crew reached to pick up a hat 
on the water, and found a man under it, senseless; when got 
on board he soon recovered. 

During the remainder of the week the crew were variously 
employed in preparing the vessel for the ice, and in laying 
in stocks of eggs, fowls, frozen milk, &c. The crew were 
again mustered, together with 18 Shetland-men — in all, 54 
souls. They were then divided into three watches, and again 
subdivided into boats' crew — 7 boats, with 7 men in each, 
viz: a harpooneer in the bow, a boat-steerer, who stands on 
the platform on the stern, and a seaman called a specksoneer, 
who has charge of the whale-lines which lay coiled in the 
middle of the boat. The Shetland-men only row: all pull, 
except the steerer, who steers with a long oar fastened to a 
pivot on the stern. For some days the ship was prevented 
proceeding to sea in consequence of gales of wind from the 
N.W., alternating with heavy fogs. One vessel, the Prescott, 
Greenlandman, in attempting it, went on the rocks, and was 
totally wrecked in the Sound by the rocks going through her 
bottom. 

On the 1st of April we succeeded in getting to sea with a 
fair wind, with occasional heavy squalls. Being Sabbath- 
day, I, for the first time, performed my functions as chaplain, 
by reading the common-prayer used by the Church of England. 
As the captain, first officer, and most of the crew, however, 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 31 

were Wesleyans, I made compensation by reading the whole 
or a part of one of Wesley's sermons. The singing was 
more remarkable for its force than its sweetness. In the 
evening got a thorough drenching by shipping a heavy sea. 

April 3rd. — Wind still fair; great numbers of birds hovering 
about the ship, rather less in size than a hen, and of a 
dirty white color; they arc very fearless of man, very ravenous, 
and are sometimes caught by the men with a line and a 
hook baited with a piece of any fat meat. When taken and 
daubed over with soot, and let off again, they are instantly 
set upon and destroyed by the others. They are called 
Mallemouches, or by the sailors Mollymawks. 

8th. — ^Very stormy and dark; wind N.E., and excessively 
cold. As the day advanced it blew harder, with occasional 
sleet and snow, which rendered the decks dangerously slippery. 
Towards the evening it blew a hurricane, and the sea ran 
mountains high. The sails were all clewed up, except the 
close-reefed fore-top-sail, and that only to give the ship 
steerage- way. 

9th. — Good Friday. — The wind still boisterous, but inter- 
mittent. About 11 o'clock we got among the ice for the first 
time, in 72 north latitude — longitude not known. Ice seemed 
newly formed, and was in small flat pieces, which, from their 
friction against each other, were round. This kind of ice 
is called by the seamen "pancakes." As the ship bored 
through them, we found the pieces getting gradually larger 
and larger; and the heavy swell we had in the morning almost 
entirely subsided. After boring through the ice until moon- 
light, the ship was laid-to among pieces from 20 to 40 feet 
in diameter, and of irregular shapes. We now experienced 
no night, only a duskiness for a couple of hours. 

10th. — Weather still stormy, with heavy falls of snow and 
sleet. A good many seals on the pieces of ice, but the 
weather too bad to lower the boats for them. 

11th. — Wind blowing with increased violence, with a very 
heaA^ swell; a circumstance most unusual among ice. In 
consequence of the ship laboring so hard and beating with so 
much violence against the ice, were obliged to get out to sea 



32 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

again to prevent the vessel being staved. Intensely cold. 
About noon the weather cleared up, and we found ourselves 
close in to the island of Jan Mayen. This island was first 
discovered by the Dutch, and for many years was frequented 
by them. They built huts for the purpose of boiling the fat 
of the whale and of the seals. They made more than one 
attempt to winter on it, but failed, the men being always 
found dead on the return of the vessels in spring. It is 
now entirely abandoned to the Polar bears and the white 
foxes. It is rarely seen by the Greenland-men, and only oc- 
casionally by the vessels in search of seals. It is very rugged, 
rocky, and mountainous; the highest peak is called Beeren- 
berg; it is a volcano, and used to emit considerable quan- 
tities of fire, smoke stones, and ashes. Of late it has been 
quiet, or, rather, no eruption has been observed, perhaps 
from not being so much frequented. Several of the smaller 
hills, from their appearance, seem to have had a volcanic 
origin. At night, the wind abating, the ship stood away 
from the island, lest it should turn calm or blow on shore. 

13th. — ^Wind from N.E. again, and a strong gale. Threw 
overboard 30 tons of ballast to lighten the ship. Sails 
close-reefed, and a very heavy sea. 

15th. — Gale continues; at noon, by observation, were in 
latitude 70.26 N., having been driven two degrees to the 
south by the gale. In the evening, saw the top of Beerenberg 
for the first time, distant between 60 and 70 miles. 

16th. — Weather beautiful and clear; ship beating to wind- 
ward with all sails set, in a clear sea. In the afternoon 
were visited by two finners — the Balaena-PTiy salus of natural- 
ists; they gambolled about the vessel, apparently feeding, for 
a considerable length of time. The larger one could not be 
less than 90 feet long. Finners, when full-grown, are much 
longer than the true whale, and are readily distinguished by 
a large fin on the back. They are not so fat as the Mysticitus; 
the whalebone is shorter, broader, and brittle, — consequently, 
of no value or use; their velocity in the water is greater, 
and their progress is performed by much more elevated curves 
or bounds. In consequence of their amazing muscular strength 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 33 

and activity in the water, they are never attacked by the 
fishermen. 

17th. — Weather dull, with occasional light showers of snow. 
At mid-day it cleared up, and we found ourselves in streams 
of thin ice; Jan Mayen N.E., distant about seven miles. The 
mountain distinctly seen from its base to its top; its height 
is about 7,000 feet; the summit seemed to be smoking. Saw 
number of seals on the ice, but could not succeed in killing 
any of them, as, being older and wiser, they tumbled into the 
sea at our approach. 

18th. — ^Nearly calm, and the weather beautifully clear. We 
lay close in to the island, so close that we enjoyed a fine 
view of the icebergs attached to the land. In the evening the 
scene was enlivened by the arrival of some small Dutch vessels 
in search of seals. These are uncommonly scarce, and are sup- 
posed to have taken their annual migration to the north. 
Many thousands are annually killed at the west ice, prin- 
cipally by the Dutch, who fit out a great many small vessels 
for the purpose, and are very dexterous. They leave Holland 
late in February or early in March, and proceed direct to the 
ice, which they strive to make in latitude 67 or 68 N., and 
return early in May. They are generally very successful, 
much more so than the British, who send no vessels expressly 
for the purpose. Some of the Greenland-men occasionally 
call at the west ice, as we are now doing; and if, after explor- 
ing it for a few days, they, like us, do not meet with seals, 
they proceed to the north, to the more profitable fishery of 
the whale. Seals are gregarious, and at this season are found 
in flocks of many thousands. At this time they are young; 
and I do not know whether it is from their age or from the 
torpidity caused by the cold, but they allow the sailors to 
get on the pieces of ice and knock them on the head with a 
club. After their migration to the northward they are very 
wary, and make into the water on the first approach of an 
enemy. 

19th. — Quite calm, and beautiful clear weather; attempted 
to shoot some birds, but, owing to the extreme cold, I could not 
hold the gun. The birds principally about the ship are loons, 
a curious bird, about the size of a wild-duck — ^black, with a 



34 IVIY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

white breast and belly; the wings are placed very far back, 
the legs long and web-footed: They possess the singular 
faculty of being able to fly under water, not so fast as in 
the air, but still with a tolerable degree of velocity. Flocks 
of them occasionally pass the ship under water, and in clear 
calm weather are easily seen from the deck. 

20th. — Fine weather, and fair wind. Relinquished our 
search for seals, and bore away to the north. 

21st. — Strong wind from S.E. Ship boring to the north 
through streams of light ice. Weather extremely cold. Dur- 
ing last night lost sight of Jan Mayen and of most of the 
birds which used to hover around us. Now and then only a 
solitary bird, called a burgomaster, to be seen; they are very 
large and tall, and perfectly white. They are seldom or 
never seen on the water, but either in the air or perched on 
a pinnacle of the ice; they are very shy. 

23rd. — At noon we were by observation in lat. 74.30, and 
weather excessively cold. 

24th. — ^AU hands busily employed in fitting-out the whale- 
boats: six lines, each about 140 fathoms, are smoothly spliced 
together, and coiled systematically in each boat, from the 
centre of the coil to the circumference, so that there may be 
no possibility of their fouling. A harpoon is attached to the 
line, by the medium of a few fathoms of very fine and 
flexible rope. The harpoon itself is about three feet long, 
and is fitted with a handle six or eight feet long. Each boat 
is provided with a pole about twenty feet long, called a 
Jack-staff, carrying the ship's private signal. This is hoisted 
when any boat has struck a whale, to serve as a signal to the 
ship, as well as to the other boats, for assistance. There are, 
likewise, in each boat, three or four lances, to dispatch the 
whale when exhausted; a wooden kid, or small bucket, to 
throw water on the line when running out, to prevent com- 
bustion from the friction; and two long knives to cut holes 
in the tail for the ropes used in towing the whale to the 
ship. There is always a small and sharp axe in the bow, 
ready to cut the line in case it should run foul. Each boat, 
fully fitted out, is hung by tackles clear of the ship's side, 
and can be lowered into the water in a few seconds. 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 35 

25th. — Passed some floating icebergs, looking like ships 
under sail at a little distance. Being now on the fishing- 
ground, a man is constantly stationed in the crow's-nest, on 
the look-out. 

26th. — Fine clear weather; huge masses of ice on all sides, 
some shooting to a great height, like spires. Some high 
pieces with flat tops, and the many smaller pieces inter- 
spersed, struck me forcibly as bearing a strong resemblance 
to a large town in winter. By obs. lat. 76.43 N. Cold ex- 
treme, everything fluid being frozen on the slightest ex- 
posure; even the rum, when exposed on deck, is rendered 
quite thick, like frozen oil. We now enjoy continual day, as 
the sun revolves around us without ever setting; the difference 
being that it is south at noon and north at midnight. Our 
passage to the north obstructed by packed ice. An immense 
flock of seals passed us on their migration northwards. 

27th. — Early this morning, the ice opening, we made way 
to the northward, threading through the pieces with great 
care. Again surrounded by birds — burgomasters, moUymawks, 
loons, dufkies, roaches, and small party-colored birds, called 
Greenland parrots. From the shelter of the ice the sea is 
as smooth as glass, and the cold not near so intense. At 
noon, were by obs. in lat. 77.40 N. A large finner passed 
us. During the evening several unicorns, the Monodon- 
Monoceros of naturalists, came and sported around the ves- 
sel. They were apparently from 12 to 20 feet in length. 
Their color is a dirty white, covered with black spots. The 
males have one horn projecting from the upper jaw, which 
varies, according to the age of the animal, from a few 
inches to 12 feet. This horn is twisted from right to left 
spirally, and for hardness and capacity to receive polish is 
equal to the best of ivory; the horn is of no known use to the 
animal; it is perhaps merely an attribute of the male. We 
made fruitless attempts to strike one, but without success, as 
they were exceedingly shy. 

28th. — The man in the crow's-nest gave notice of a whale 
coming towards the ship; two boats were instantly manned 
and lowered. At a short distance it stopped to breathe; the 



36 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

boats were within a few yards of it, when it took the alarm 
and made off. As it was close to the ship, I had a capital 
chance of witnessing its motions; it lay half a minute or so 
on the surface, with the crown of its head and its back out 
of the water; it then blew a quantity of air and mucus, like 
steam, through the air-holes on the top of the head, and 
gradually sank three or four feet, as gradually rising again; 
it again breathed and sank. This was repeated several times, 
till, being alarmed by the approach of the boats, it suddenly 
ducked its head, curved its back, and, giving its huge tail a 
flourish in the air, made off. When we on deck saw Mr. 
Ashe, the first officer, push out his bow-oar, jump up, and 
seize his harpoon, ready to strike, we made sure of the whale; 
and when we saw it make off, I know that several lookers-on 
distinctly broke the third commandment. In the afternoon a 
number of unicorns sporting round the ship, but we could 
not succeed in striking one of them. 

29th. — ^At 1 A. M. saw the land to the eastward, and stood 
towards it till 9 o'clock, when we were close in-shore. It 
presented a chain of high craggy mountains, covered with 
snow; five of them in particular were very striking and 
peaked, and appeared to be as high as Beerenberg on Jan 
IMayen. No signs of vegetation — nothing but icebergs, bare 
black rocks, and a background of icy mountains. We were 
on that part of the coast of Spitzbergen called Magdelena 
Bay. We did not land or make any stay, but proceeded 
along the coast to the N. We passed several icebergs, some 
of tolerable size. One we saw at Jan Mayen, 1400 feet high, 
did not seem much larger* than some we see here. Continued 
to the N. Another ship in company. Saw a whale, but as it 
was pursued by their ships' boats, took no notice of it. 
Tried to get some seals lying on a piece of ice, but failed. 
Saw another whale; sent two boats after it; but, after an 
unsuccessful chase of three hours, they were signalled to 
return on board. 

30th. — Ship plying to the N. through the ice; got a heavy 
blow from one of the pieces. The London ship in company 
with us saw and struck a whale, which they succeeded in 
killing in three hours, but not until it had killed one of their 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 37 

men by a stroke of its tail; his body was put into a box, 
and placed in the mizen-top for the purpose of being taken 
home to his friends. 

May 1st. — This morning, a few minutes after midnight, 
a sailor, dressed up with skins, Russo matts, an enormous 
wig of horse-hair and oakum, came to the ship's bows as 
Neptune. His wife, as Amphitrite, dressed in an equally 
fantastic manner, hailed the ship, ordering the sailors to back 
the main-yard. Then, coming on deck, they were mounted 
on a gun-carriage, by way of a car, and drawn along the 
ship's decks to the after-hatchway; they were then con- 
ducted in state to the between-decks, where, the crew being 
mustered, Neptune made a speech, that he, the God of 
the seas, was glad to see them; and as some of them, his 
loving subjects, had never passed the north cape of Europe 
(71.10 N.), he would, assisted by his wife, shave them, so 
that henceforth and forever they might have the privilege 
of navigating his dominions north of said cape. Those who 
had not been in Greenland before were brought out, one by 
one, and, being seated on a large cask, Neptune's wife 
daubed their faces with a vile composition of soot, tar, and 
oil, which was scraped off by Neptune with a razor made 
of a rusty iron hoop. There was no appeal; every one must 
submit. One or two obnoxious lads were roughly treated: 
being asked a question, as soon as the mouth was open to 
answer, the brush was thrust into it. When called up, my 
plea for exemption would hardly have been listened to if I 
had not had the key of the spirit-room, and used it forth- 
with. The ceremonies concluded with a dance and a double 
allowance of rum. Bitterly cold: ther. 40 below zero. In 
the afternoon two whales rose near the ship; the boats got 
very near them, but could not succeed in striking either of 
them. 

2nd. — Thick foggy weather, and intensely cold. The rig- 
ging covered with a saltish rheum arising from the sea. It is 
deposited on the men's faces and clothes; from its excoriating 
effect on the skin, it is commonly called "the barber." This 
mist or fog does not exist far above the level of the sea, as in 
the crow's-nest it is quite clear. The ship laid-to all day. 



38 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

oth. — Blowing hard from N., with insufferable cold, 
rendering a person exposed to it unable to articulate from 
torpidity or contraction of the muscles of the face. The ice 
coming down and threatening to close us in, set all sail, and 
stood away to the S. Passed a Polar bear on a piece of ice, 
but were too anxious to escape the danger which threatens 
us to stop and attack it. Compared to what I had seen in 
menageries, it seemed a large one, but was informed that it 
was not more than half-grown. In the evening escaped from 
our dangerous position in the ice, leaving two vessels beset, 
there to remain in great danger until the ice opens again, 
or the current carries them three or four degrees to the 
south. 

6th. — Ship still making her way to the southward, among 
heavy ice. Again in danger of being closed in; the only 
passage was between two heavy masses of ice, which, under 
the influence of the wind or current, were approaching each 
other. When nearly through, the pieces came in contact 
with the ship, and crushed the two quarter-boats to pieces; 
extremely glad to get off so cheaply. At one o'clock were out 
of danger from being beset in the ice. During the afternoon, 
when walking the deck with Capt. Dannatt, I perceived two 
objects on the surface of the water. Looking at them at- 
tentively, I became convinced that they were two human faces, 
and at once gave the alarm. A general laugh, and an ex- 
clamation that they were a couple of walrusses, set me to 
rights. We tried to harpoon them, but without success. 

8th. — Wind more moderate. One ship in company with us, 
proceeding to N.W. Pan against a piece of ice, which 
started some of the planks on the starboard bow. Noon, 
lat. by obs. 79.58 N. Saw a whale, and sent 6 boats after it; 
but after a fruitless chase of two hours they were recalled. 
At 6 P. M. saw the vessel we had been in company with in 
the morning, with a signal of distress flying. It had struck 
upon a piece of ice and been seriously damaged; as, how- 
ever, it was to windward of us, and as the ice lay very 
cross, we could not easily get near them, so we pursued our 
own course. The ship was the Laurel, of Burlington. 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 39 

lOth. — Strong gales of wind and little ice. Saw several 
whales, but too stormy to lower the boats. In the evening, 
weather more moderate; received a visit from Capt. Cook, 
of the Elizabeth, of Hull, who had just killed a unicorn, so 
large as to yield two butts of oil. Just before midnight sent 
two boats after a whale, but without success. 

11th. — Fine weather, and calm. This forenoon an immense 
sword-fish — Delphinus-Gladiator — passed close to the ship. 
It is said to be the greatest enemy of the whale; it is very 
rarely seen so far north. In strength and velocity in the 
water, it equals, if it does not exceed, any known fish. 
Weather being so fine and mild, I went a-shooting, and shot 
a number of roaches, dufkies, loons, and snow-birds. Stuffed 
a couple of each, and gave the rest to the men for sea-pies. 

12th. — Some Dutch ships in company. This morning a 
whale rose in their midst: each vessel sent two or three boats 
to wait where they expected it to rise. I anticipated a 
diverting scene when it did rise, and was not disappointed. 
All was hurry-skurry and confusion, which frightened the 
fish and caused it to flourish its tail in the air and make oflF. 
Lat. by obs. 79.57 N. Went on board one of the Dutch ships. 
The captain, a young man, spoke some English. He had 
been five weeks off Jan Mayen, where he had killed three 
thousand seals. The masters of two of the other vessels were 
his brothers. On taking leave, he gave Mr. Ashe and me 
eacli a square bottle of very excellent gin. 

13th. — Weather calm. Went a-shooting, and killed forty- 
one birds — enough for all hands for a couple of days. 

14th. — Beautiful weather; the Lord Wellington and the King 
George in company. At 9 a. m. two whales rose; each ship 
sent a couple of boats; one of the fish was struck by a har- 
pooneer of the Lord Wellington, who at once discovered that 
he had only got fast to a sucker. It was very soon killed, and 
found to be little larger than a unicorn. The attention of all 
the boats was then directed to the female, as they all knew, 
by experience, it would not leave its young one, but would 
hover about the place. For nearly four hours it ran about 
like a mad creature, closely pursued by the boats of the three 
vessels. At one o'clock it was struck by a harpooneer 



40 MY FATHEB'S JOURNAL 

of the King George, who, being assisted by all the boats, 
soon killed it. I have often heard of the maternal affection 
of the whale, and here saw a fine instance of it. About 11 
p. M, we were visited by a very fine sea-horse; made several 
attempts to strike it, but failed. If shot and wounded, it 
would make off; if killed, it would sink like a stone. As 
tbo ice was closing in, the Lord Wellington and we made the 
best of our way out, leaving the King George beset. 

15th. — Beautiful clear weather; the Lord Wellington in 
company. Saw two whales; each ship sent two boats after 
them; the harpooneer of the Lord Wellington struck one; and 
as the two boats we had sent were off in pursuit of the second 
whale, Capt. Dannatt lowered two others and sent them to 
assist the Lord Wellington. Their whale, when struck, went 
perpendicularly downwards, where it remained upwards 
of half an hour; it then came to the surface, apparently quite 
exhausted; and as the boats were scattered about where it 
was expected to rise, it was immediately harpooned again, 
and it dived a second time before recovering its breath; but, 
being obliged to rise to breathe, two more harpoons were 
driven into it; and as it was from breathlessness obliged 
to remain to breathe, several whale-lances, some twenty 
feet long, were thrust into its body. It made several in- 
effectual struggles to get away, but was too far spent; and as 
some of the whale-lances had penetrated the lungs, it began 
to eject blood; and as eight boats were lying alongside, 
plying their long lances into its body, it soon expired and 
turned on its back. At that moment the look-out at our own 
mast-head called out: "A fall! — a fall!" Everything was 
instantly in an uproar; those who were in bed rushed 
on deck undrest, and tumbled into the boats, which were 
instantly lowered into the water and pushed off, the man 
in the crow's-nest pointing with his arm in the direction 
they were to go. As we on deck could see nothing for the 
ice, we were told by the look-out that one of our boats was 
fast to a whale, about three miles to leeward. In a few 
minutes he called to us on deck to say that the second boat 
had also struck the whale. By this time, the two boats 
which had been assisting the Lord Wellington having re- 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 41 

turned, the ship made sail with all the spare boats in tow, 
being directed by the man at the mast-head. When near 
the boats which had struck the whale, the loose boats were 
cast oil" and dispersed where it was expected to rise. It did 
rise quite exhausted, but instantly dived again, and never 
came up. In the meantime the ice was coming together, 
and beset the boats; attempts were made to drag up the 
whale, but without success. The ends of the lines were 
then taken on board the ship, with the intention of either 
dragging up the whale or drawing out the harpoons. The 
lines, however, broke, and the whale was lost. The ship 
immediately took the boats on board, and rejoined the Lord 
Wellington. 

16th. — Beautiful weather, and quite mild. Ship making 
her way to the N. through heavy ice. At noon we were 
by obs. in lat. 80.11 N. The two discovery-ships last year 
only reached nine miles further, being then stopped by the 
solid continent of ice. 

17th. — Strong breezes of wind. A ship, called the Spencer, 
of Hull, in company with us. During the forenoon a whale 
rose; each vessel sent boats after it. After playing about 
for a considerable time, it was at last struck by one of the 
Spencer's harpooneers; it was close to us when it was struck 
a second time, and shortly afterwards a third time. Soon 
afterwards a serious accident had like to have happened: 
one of the Spencer's harpooneers, approaching it for the 
purpose of lancing it, received a blow from the whale's tail, 
which knocked the boat out of the w^ater; it struck the 
boat a second time, so that it went to pieces and sank, 
through the weight of the lines, leaving the men struggling 
on the surface: they were, however, speedily picked up by 
the other boats. The harpooneer was standing up, and was 
knocked out by the first stroke of the animal's tail. As we 
did not speak the Spencer, cannot say whether any of the 
men were seriously injured. In two hours afterwards the 
whale was killed. 

18th. — Beautiful weather, but cold. Saw two whales, but 
could not succeed in striking either of them; we perceived 



42 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

that one of them had scars on its back, about the size of 
harpoon-wounds. 

19th. — Strong breezes of wind. A whale being seen at a 
distance, boats were instantly lowered: the crews were as 
usual in them, when, in his eagerness to get away, the boat- 
steerer of one of them took the fall entirely off the cleet. 
The immediate result was that, not being able to support the 
weight, the stern of the boat dropped and precipitated the 
men into the water. One had presence of mind to catch 
hold of the ship's ladder; the other four were struggling in 
the water astern, as the ship was going at the rate of seven 
knots. The ship was instantly laid-to and boats sent to their 
rescue: before they reached them, however, two had sunk; 
one came again to the surface, and was laid hold of by a 
boat-hook; the other was seen under water and brought up 
by loAvering a harpoon. Both were inanimate, and it was 
only after a long-continued use of the ordinary means that 
vitality was restored. I am afraid to say how long one 
of them remained without evincing any signs of life. At 
any rate, the whale was left undisturbed. 

20th. — My 19th birthday. Strong gales of wind, but, as 
we were among heavy ice, did not feel their effects. Saw 
two or three whales, and sent six boats after them. The 
whales were not running, but feeding and playing about. 
One rose near one of the boats, and the harpooneer, pulling 
the boat right on its back, struck it; it ran a very short 
distance down, when it came up again and lay on the surface, 
splashing and flourishing its tail and fins in the air in such a 
dangerous manner as to prevent any of the boats getting near 
enough to strike it a second time. After a while, however, 
it went down, and rose again close to the edge of a heavy 
floe of ice, where it acted the same game over again; it lay 
evidently watching the boats; and when any of them at- 
tempted to approach it, it turned on its side, shaking its fin 
in the air, with which it evidently knew that it could destroy 
them. Mr. Ashe, the first ofl&cer, seeing how matters stood, and 
knowing it would escape if not very speedily secured, got on 
the piece of ice at a little distance, carrying his harpoon, and. 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 43 

with two of his men dragging the line, made his way until 
he got just over the whale, when he threw his harpoon with 
such force as to make it penetrate the whale's body to the 
stock. It instantly dived, and ran five lines out before it 
again came to the surface; and when it did, it was as wicked 
and mischievous as before. One boat at last succeeded in 
striking it, but, when backing astern again, received a blow 
of its tail. The harpooneer, seeing the impending blow, leaped 
back among the men; it struck the boat's bow obliquely, so as 
not to injure it; but the concussion threw the boat-steerer into 
the water. As the whale began to run, the line was at once 
divided by the axe, and the boat returned to pick up the 
steersman, who was almost frightened to death. He did not 
know how he had got into the water, or what had happened 
to him: being, however, utterly useless, the crew took him 
on board the ship, which was close by, and, taking another 
in his place, joined the hunt again. In the meanwhile, the 
whale was again setting the boats at defiance, and it was 
only after some time that two of them, rowing rapidly past 
it, threw their harpoons into it. It was, then killed, but not 
until five hours had elapsed from the time it was first struck. 
When dead, it turned over on its back; holes were then made 
through its fins, which were lashed across the belly. Similar 
holes were made in the forks of its tail, through which ropes 
were reeved, and then, all the boats fastening on, the whale 
was towed to a neighbouring mass of ice, to which the ship 
was already anchored. The whale being then brought along- 
side, the harpooneers, with spikes on the soles of their boots, 
got upon it, and cut a piece about four feet wide by six 
feet long, leaving its base uncut. A hole was then made, 
through which the loop of a strong rope was passed, and 
fastened by a fidd. The rope was then rove through a block 
in the rigging, and its end taken to the windlass. This 
arrangement or contrivance not only keeps the carcase steady, 
but, as the surface is removed, enables the whale to be 
gradually turned and another surface exposed and removed. 
When this was done, which only took a few minutes, the 
harpooneers and steerers cut out pieces of about a ton 
weight, which were hoisted on deck by ropes and pullies 



44 IVIY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

connected with the winches. As fast as these pieces were 
hoisted on deck, they were thrown down the hatchway be- 
tween the decks. The lower lip of the carcase was cut up 
and hoisted on board; the enormous tongue, which is a mass 
of nearly pure fat, was sent up; the whalebone which is 
attached to the roof of the mouth was then removed; the 
fins and tail were cut off and hoisted up; and the whale 
gradually turned over, until it was entirely flinched. The 
whole time occupied was nearly three hours. The fat on 
the surface of the body was about ten inches thick, which is 
considered to be very little. The fat on the body of a 
full-grown female is frequently, I am told, two feet or more 
in thickness. I am surprised to find the fat firm, and more 
like gristle than the ordinary fat of animals. When boiled 
down, however, Mr. Ashe informs me that it yields 75 per 
cent, of pure oil. While the whale was being cut up we 
were surrounded by immense numbers of mollymawks and 
snow-birds, which could easily be knocked down with a 
stick. The sailors amused me by throwing some pieces of 
blubber among them, too large for any single bird to swallow; 
when one got hold of it, he was instantly attacked by the 
others, and almost torn to pieces, until he quitted it. This 
went on until some bird more powerful or more dexterous 
managed to get off with it. 

After the whale was flinched, the decks were cleared and 
cleaned; the ship was cast off from the ice, and stood away 
to the N.E. One of the men, who yesterday was nearly 
drowned, suffers to-day from acute inflammation of the lungs. 

21st. — ^Light airs, and beautiful mild weather. In the 
afternoon two whales rose close to the ship, and remained 
sporting on the surface in a very loving manner. The boats 
were instantly lowered and pulled towards them; one of the 
boats ran against the whale, and the harpooneer, who had 
just seized his harpoon, was thrown down; he, however, 
recovered himself in an instant, and plunged his harpoon 
into its back. As the whale, however, was in no hurry to 
go away, the man again seized his harpoon, and, throwing 
his whole weight on it, gave it a good shove. It then set 
off nearly perpendicularly downwards, and with such vel- 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 45 

ocity that the harpooneer was hidden in the smoke caused 
by the rapidity of the lines running round the bolland, and 
this in spite of the water thrown upon it. A second boat was 
just in time to render aid before the lines were run out. The 
whale came up again in about an hour, nearly dead — not 
from fatigue or exertion, but from the enormous, almost 
incredible, weight of water it had sustained. It ran out 
seven lines, each line 140 fathoms long, and went apparently 
pei-pendicularly down; if so, it must have been subjected 
to a pressure of 980 fathoms of water. But, even if one or 
even two hundred fathoms are allowed for obliquity, still the 
pressure must have been almost incalculable. It lay almost 
motionless, until three boats pulled on its back and struck 
their harpoons into it: it ran another length of line out of 
their boats, and then stopped. It was instantly surrounded 
by all the boats, and in the space of forty minutes more was 
killed. The ship was again anchored to a piece of ice, as 
yesterday, and the whale brought alongside and cut up. It 
also was a male animal, and very lean. 

24th. — Quite calm, but a dense fog. We hear whales 
blowing on every side, but cannot see them. Six boats, 
however, were sent off with strict orders not to separate. 
They returned unsuccessful: they heard and saw several, 
but could not get near enough to strike one. At noon 
it cleared up, and discovered us in a large basin formed by 
heavy ice, with numbers of whales sporting about in a very 
playful manner; but, being quite calm, they invariably made 
off whenever they heard or saw the boats. In the afternoon 
Capt. Dannatt got into a boat, and, posting himself on the 
edge of a piece of ice, resolved to wait in hopes that one 
would rise near him. He was not waiting more than twenty 
minutes till one rose about forty yards off. He pulled to- 
wards it; but, finding the boat going athwart it, he directed 
the men to cease pulling, and ordered the boat-steerer to scull 
quietly. It lay shaking on the surface of the water, as if 
paralyzed by a sense of its danger, until Capt. Dannatt 
struck his harpoon into it; it then made off, running only 
two lines out, when another harpoon was struck into it, and 
in an hour after it was first struck it was killed. It was 



46 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

a male fish, but very fat. During the act of flinching, a 
harpooneer cut his foot severely. 

26th. — Strong wind and clear. Ship threading her way 
to the northward. At 5 P. M., after an exciting chase, a 
whale was harpooned; it ran out five lines, and was killed 
in two hours and a-half. 

27th. — At 7 P. M. we got to the open water in lat. N. 
79.30, where we again joined the Lord Wellington. In es- 
caping from the ice we left two v^sels beset, who were more 
to leeward than we were. 

28th. — ^A whale was seen, and three boats were sent after 
it, one succeeding in harpooning it; it ran six lines out, and 
the greater part of a second boat's lines. It remained nearly 
an hour before it came to the surface again, and then rose at 
a considerable distance, and not far from the Lord Wellington. 
Capt. Dannatt sent two boats to his brother's assistance; 
both struck it before it went down again, and in 25 minutes 
more it was killed. As usual, the ship was anchored to the 
ice. 

Shortly after it was got on board and the decks cleared, 
three or four whales were seen, and boats sent after them. 
The harpooner who had struck the last whale got close to 
one of them, but, through the fault of the boat-steerer, not 
close enough to strike. He threw his harpoon, which did not 
penetrate. He, however, was fortunate enough to strike 
another, which remained down a considerable time. As soon 
as it rose, three more harpoons were driven into it; but, in- 
stead of going down again, as was expected, it set off with 
great rapidity towards the heavy pack of ice to windward. 
As the men knew that if it once gained the shelter of the 
close ice they would likely lose it, the loose boats attached 
themselves to those fast to the whale, and all stuck their oars 
in the water, to retard its flight; but in vain; it reached the 
ice, and the men were obliged to pay away their lines until it 
stopped, which it did in a few minutes. The men, seeing it 
blowing, proceeded over the ice with three harpoons; two 
were stuck into it and the lances freely used, when it made 
ofl" again, fortunately into clear water, where it was shortly 
killed. The ship, as usual, was anchored to the ice; the 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 47 

whale was brought alongside, and was flinched. It was a 
male fish, and miserably lean. 

29th. — Beautiful weather. Very nearly run foul of by a 
Dutch ship, which came so close that I could have jumped 
on board. It had got two small whales, and had their tails 
hung up in the rigging. No correspondence in language 
between us. 

30th. — Quite calm, but thick foggy weather. Two ships 
with us, the Dutchman and a ship from Aberdeen. Great 
numbers of unicorns and seals around us, but could not take 
any of them. 

31st. — Last night it began to blow from N.E., which drove 
the ice in large masses down upon us. As we saw no prospect 
of getting out, we looked out for and found a creek in one 
of the largest masses, into which the ship was taken. The 
sails were then stowed and the provisions got on deck, in 
the case of the ship being crushed to pieces. The ice con- 
tinues to come down, so that no water can be seen, even 
from the mast-head. Prospect of getting out only by a change 
of wind or by being drifted to the southward. Nothing to 
relieve "the eye" but the bare masts of the Dutch and Aber- 
deen ships. 

June 1st. — Wind N.E. Nothing can be more disheartening 
than our imprisonment. 

2nd. — Early this morning the wind changed to the west. 
During the day the ice slackened considerably, and as it 
peeled off to the southward we occasionally caught sight 
of water. The Dutchman, being nearer the edge, soon got 
clear and out of sight. Some hours afterwards the ice near 
us began to move; a lane opened here and another there, 
and we set our sails ready to take advantage of any channel. 
We at last cast off, and threaded our way out between heavy- 
floes, leaving the Aberdeen ship to follow, which was then 
a mile or two astern. Our way, when near open water, lay 
between two heavy floes. We got safely through, although 
we found the channel getting perceptibly narrower. Being 
then nearly if not quite safe, I went below with Capt. 
Dannatt; and while conversing, Mr. Ashe came down to 
inform us that the Diamond, in passing between the two 



48 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

pieces, had been caught by them and crushed to pieces. 
We ran on deck and found it too true. One of her masts was 
still upright; the others, with fragments of the vessel, were 
being piled up among the masses of ice which were broken 
off by the collision of the two floes. We approached as 
near as we could with regard to our own safety, although we 
dared not send them any help. We perceived that they had 
three boats on the ice, and were putting sails, chests, meat, 
&c., into them. Some of them at last launched one of their 
boats over the ice, and came on board of us. The party 
consisted of the captain, the surgeon, the mates, and several 
of the men. A signal was made to the others to come off, 
and one boat came, loaded to the water's edge with men and 
some of their effects. As about twenty still remained on the 
ice, boats were sent to bring some of them off, and to say 
that if they did not instantly come on board they would be 
left to their fate. They did then come on board, but most 
of them quite drunk and shockingly profane in their language. 
As the ice continued in motion, and was still very unsafe, 
we got out of it as quickly as we could, leaving the remains 
of the Diamond and her eight whales. Capt. Small, in giv- 
ing an account of the loss of his ship, said that in following 
our vessel he perceived that the channel between the floes 
was getting smaller, and lowered six boats to assist by 
towing. When, however, escape was seen to be impossible, 
the men in the boats, as well as those on board, escaped the 
collision by getting on the ice and out of the way. The men 
who were towing succeeded in dragging three of the boats 
on to the ice. Those on board got into the spirit-room before 
leaving. Some, and only a few, succeeded in saving a few 
of their effects. 

Some Dutch ship being seen to leeward, the men who had 
last come on board requested to be sent to them. This request 
was readily granted, and two of their boats were given to 
them for the purpose; and after the uproar and the disputes 
about the division of the things saved were settled, they went 
off, and the others to bed again. About three o'clock we 
got into a flock of whales. Six boats) were instantly lowered, 
with strict orders not to separate. Two whales were im- 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 49 

mediately harpooned. In an hour and a-half one was killed 
and taken in tow by the ship; and soon afterwards the 
second was killed, and also taken in tow. The boats then 
struck two others, which were killed without any unusual 
occurrence. The ship was then, as usual, anchored to the 
ice, and the whales were flinched. 

As the difTerence between day and night can only be dis- 
tinguished by reference to the compass, and as the occur- 
rences and events of the last two or three days have been 
so varied and so exciting, they are apt to get confused. I 
am, however, very decidedly entering the late occurrences 
on this morning of the 3rd. 

3rd. — On this day we spoke the Middleton, of Aberdeen. 
Her captain came on board, and after a consultation it was 
decided that Capt. Small and a certain number of his men 
should go on board the Middleton. This was accordingly 
done, and Capt. Small left us with the sympathy of all on 
board. In the evening, quite calm. The weather being thick 
and foggy, the ship was made fast to a piece of ice. 

4th. — Weather still calm and foggy. Caught a shark ten 
feet long, and hoisted it on deck for the purpose of exam- 
ining its structure. 

5th. — Still perfectly calm. The Middleton and the Dutch 
ship, with the Diamond^s men, are in company. They had 
struck a whale for the Dutchmen, who are very anxious 
to keep them. 

7th. — Got a channel out, and made way to the northward 
at noon. We were by obs. in lat. 80.12 N,, and still making 
to the north. 

8th. — ^At two o'clock this morning the Trafalgar arrived 
at the solid ice, which connects with the North Pole. After 
sailing some hours along its edge, in an easterly course, 
we bore away to the southward. At noon we were by obs. 
in lat. 80.44 N., and by Mr. Ashe's observation in 81.01 north. 
In the morning, before the ship bore away to the southward, 
it must have been ten or twelve miles farther to the north. 
At 7 P. M. we made the land, and continued to approach it. 

9th. — At 7 o'clock this morning we were close in with 
Moffen Island, on the northern extremity of Spitzbergen, 



50 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

laying in 80.07 N., and coasted along during the day, with 
a light breeze of wind from the N.N.E. 

At six o'clock p. M. we altered our course to the westward 
again, and at midnight got among light streams of loose 
and small ice, with here and there a heavy floe. 

10th. — Strong breezes and clear weather. Boring our way 
to the westward with considerable difficulty, being often 
obliged to make a circuit to get round the floes or keep 
clear of them, so as to reach open water, the appearance 
of which we could see in the distance. About two o'clock 
we reached open water, which was formed by two very large 
and several smaller floes. The enclosed clear water was 
about a mile and a-half by a mile broad, and was literally 
swarming with whales, looking like droves of black cattle 
in a pasture. All the boats were lowered, with strict in- 
junctions to keep together and not to strike more than three 
fish at one time. There was, of course, a contest, and a very 
sharp one — ^not who should strike the fish, but who should 
do so first; for, besides the honor and credit, the har- 
pooner and steersman of a boat first striking a whale re- 
ceive each a guinea, and the rowers seven-and-sixpence each, 
independently of their share in the general profits of 
the voyage. Of course, the four loose boats are kept clear 
and ready to assist. Two of the boats pulled into a creek, 
and immediately each struck a whale. Another boat met 
a whale, and, although at disadvantage, succeeded in getting 
fast to it. By this time, two ships, the Harmony, of Hull, 
and the Union, of Peterhead, seeing our fiags flying, ar- 
rived as we were killing our three whales. The boats of 
the Hull ship struck three fish; but for want of proper and 
timely assistance, one of them, with the six lines, escaped. 
The Union's boats struck two; but for the want of the aid 
of the other boats, one of them also got off, with their har- 
poon and lines attached to it. By this time the three whales 
we had struck were killed, and the men in the boats were 
busy getting in and coiling their lines, excepting Mr. Ashe, 
whose line had got foul of the bottom of the ice. As he was 
positive that it was a whale he was fast to, he did not strike 
his jack. While disputing about it, a whale rose not far off, 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 51 

and was espied by two of the boats belonging to one of the 
other ships, who, however, would not strike it, as they saw a 
harpoon sticking in its back, and Mr. Ashe's jack flying not 
far off. Capt. Dannatt, who witnessed the circumstance, im- 
mediately called one of our boats; but as their lines were 
not quite coiled in, it did not come for a few minutes, and 
by that time the whale had gone. Capt Dannatt, however, 
who was in the crow's-nest, observed its course, and directed 
the boat to lie at a point which he pointed out. The boat 
had only lain there a few minutes when the whale rose at 
a short distance and was instantly struck, and, with the 
assistance of some of the other boats, which by that time had 
got in their lines, was soon killed. When brought alongside 
it was found to be the whale which had escaped from the 
Union, as one of that ship's harpoons, with six lines, was 
attached to it. By the time this last whale was killed, 
hardly a fish was to be seen: all had taken fright and diS' 
appeared. 

11th. — ^At two o'clock this morning the ship was anchored 
to the ice as usual, and the four whales were brought 
alongside and flinched. 

During the time the crew were employed in cutting up the 
whales we were visited by several sharks, and I again 
availed myself of the opportunity of dissecting one of them. 
They are most torpid and senseless animals; for, though a 
knife or a lance is run into them, they retreat a few yards, 
but directly return again. After the whales were flinched 
and the decks cleared and cleaned, the ship was cast off, and 
proceeded to look out for the passage again, but found it 
effectually blocked up. 

12th. — ^Very thick and foggy; no egress, and the space in 
which we are confined is evidently less. At noon, saw a 
small whale and sent boats after it. One boat got near it, 
but not near enough to strike, and the harpooneer hove his 
harpoon at it, but did not get fast. Soon afterwards it rose 
again near one of the boats, and the harpooneer struck at it 
with such force as to bend his harpoon almost double; but, 
to his surprise, the man found the weapon remaining in his 
hand. He had struck it on the crown-bone. Soon afterwards 



52 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

it was struck and killed by the boats of the Harmony. Ship 
still anchored to the ice. 

13th. — Weather still thick and foggy — so much so, that 
objects cannot be perceived beyond the length of the ship. 
As the space of water in which the ship is confined gets less, 
we are obliged to cast off and choose another berth. During 
the evening the weather cleared up a little, and we found 
ourselves surrounded by unicorns, but could not succeed in 
striking one of them. The Harmony, however, got one by 
shooting it with a gun-harpoon. 

14th. — Weather still thick and foggy; no egress, but the 
basin in which we are confined apparently gets larger. To- 
day, got again two sharks; neither of them had eyes. The 
sockets remain, but the eye-balls appear to have been taken 
out, as the remains of the muscles are still to be seen. The 
cavity of the brain is very small, hardly larger in circimi- 
ference than the spinal-marrow. They are, consequently, very 
tenacious of life. The head of one was cut off, and retained 
its sensibility for a long time. A fishing-lead was put into 
its mouth five hours after, and it bit it through with ease. 

15th. — Still thick and foggy. The ice has opened; but, 
on account of the fog, it was thought unsafe to cast off, — so 
we remain anchored to the ice. 

17th. — Quite clear, and fine mild weather. Perceived 
some vessels coming towards us, and made off to the N.W. 
with the intention of leaving them and keeping by ourselves. 
Only one followed us. After sailing eight hours, we came 
to two heavy floes with a clear passage between them; we 
ran down, leaving the other ship, whichi would not follow us. 
After sailing along the edge of one of the floes for three or 
four miles, Capt. Dannatt perceived a whale blowing in a 
hole in the floe. Two boats were sent to the edge of the ice, 
and one of the harpooneers was directed to proceed over the 
ice to the hole, and to wait there until the fish appeared again. 
He went with two of the men dragging the line, and found 
the whale still lying there. He at once plunged his harpoon 
into it, with such force as to overbalance himself and 
fall into the water. He was with difficulty extricated by the 
two men who had accompanied him. The whale made into 



I 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 53 

the open water, and was killed in an hour and a-half. While 
the boats were towing it on board, another whale rose close 
to them; it was instantly pursued and struck, and in thirty- 
five minutes was killed. It was only a small one. When 
the whales were brought alongside, it was perceived that the 
floes of ice were coming together, under the influence of a 
current. The whales were immediately cast-off from the ship, 
and six boats left to tow them; while all sails were set to 
beat out again. In two hours we had weathered a point, 
where we considered ourselves safe, and then lay-to for the 
boats. As it was, we had little time to spare; for if we 
had not seen the ice in motion when we did, or if we had been 
a mile more to leeward, we would have shared the fate of 
the Diamond. We watched the two enormous pieces come 
in contact with a horrible crushing noise, and saw the frag- 
ments piled up to a great height. X mem. ex. 

18th. — ^At two A. M. the boats with the two whales joined 
the ship, and the usual process was gone through. 

At ten A. M. spoke the ship we had seen the day before, 
the Mary and Elizabeth; and as it became foggy, the master 
came on board and spent the day. In the evening the 
weather cleared up, and, as the ice appeared to be closing, 
we tried to get into an adjoining body of water, but were 
prevented by a piece of ice twice as big as our ship, which 
blocked up the only channel. Twelve boats were sent — six 
from each vessel — to attempt to tow it out of the way. In 
half an hour they succeeded in making a passage suflScient 
to allow us to pass through, which we did without damage. 
The Mary and EUzaheth, however, struck one of the sides 
of the passage, and, recoiling, got jammed fast; and it was 
only after considerable exertions that she was towed clear. 
Soon afterwards we saw a whale, and pursued it; but the 
weather becoming foggy again, the boats were recalled. 

19th. — Uncommonly thick and foggy, with very little wind. 
Early this morning the watch on deck heard repeated calls 
of "A fall! a fall!" and could distinctly hear the whale-lines 
running out of a boat, but could see nothing. As all of our 
ship's boats were on board, we paid no attention to the calls. 
When another watch came on deck, half an hour afterwards, 



54 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

the harpooneer in charge heard a whale blowing near the ship, 
and sent two boats after it, but too late. In a short time a 
boat belonging to the Mary and Elizabeth came on board, 
and told us that they had left their ship in pursuit of some 
unicorns, but, coming across the whale, had harpooned it, 
and lost it for want of assistance. As they could not find 
their vessel in the dense fog, they remained on board with 
us until it should clear up, which it did in a few hours after. 
During the day we heard the blast of whales, but could not 
see them for the fog. 

20th. — This morning a polar bear appeared near us, on 
the edge of the ice. He was supposed not to be hungry, 
as he did not attack us or get into the water, and none were 
hardy enough to attack him on the ice. After looking at 
each other for some time a fog supervened, and we saw him 
no more. In the evening it cleared up, and we found our- 
selves surrounded by unicorns. Boats were lowered: one of 
the boats, perceiving three approaching, lay perfectly still 
on the water, the harpooneer ordering the men to lift their 
oars out of the water and to be perfectly silent. There 
were a male with a long horn, a female, and a young one. 
On nearing the boat the male perceived it, and made off. 
The female was following, when the harpooneer threw his 
harpoon, and fortunately with success. It ran two lines out, 
and on coming up was killed by the other boat. It was 
brought alongside and hoisted into the ship entire. The 
mouth, throat, and stomach were full of different kinds of 
small animals and fishes — the greater number like overgrown 
shrimps; some of them measured four or five inches in 
length. The unicorn itself was sixteen feet long, and yielded 
one butt of oil. At nine p. m. made sail to the northward, 
the current having carried us considerably to the S.W. 
Parted with the Mary and Elizabeth, who preferred remaining 
behind. 

Early this morning, being at the masthead with one of the 
speksoneers, he directed my attention to two objects on the 
ice, at some distance. As they advanced rapidly towards us, 
we soon perceived them to be two polar bears — an old one 
and its cub. We called out to those on deck, and two boats 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 55 

were manned and lowered, with Capt. D. in one of them. 
As soon as the bears perceived the boats they got into the 
water, and swam towards them with astonishing rapidity. 
When near the boats Capt. D. fired at the old one, but with 
no apparent effect. He fired again, when the bears turned 
and made towards the ice; they scrambled up and stood on 
its edge, shewing no inclination to renew the attack; the 
boats got closer to them, when Capt. D. fired again, and shot 
the dam through the head. The young one would not quit 
the body, but remained until a noose of a rope was thrown 
over it, and it was dragged into the water, as Capt. D. wished 
to keep it alive. It was five feet long, and stood higher than 
a large sheep; when brought alongside, it shewed such 
ferocity that it was decided to kill it. I found their stomachs 
perfectly empty. The white bear is very ferocious, and, I am 
told, very rarely turns tail, as this one did, when wounded. 
Innumerable stories are told of their attacking the boats. 
Last season. Captain Hawkins, of the Everthorp, of Hull, 
attacked a bear in the water; his gun would not go off, and 
he attempted to run his whale-lance through it as it ad- 
vanced; the lance, however, struck on its breast-bone, and the 
bear, wrenching it out of his hand, got into the boat, and 
seizing him by the thigh, made off to the nearest ice. The 
men were paralyzed for a minute or two, when they followed 
the bear, throwing the loose articles in the boat at it; one 
of them hitting it on the head, it left hold of the captain and 
followed the boat, which, taking a turn, picked up the captain 
and took him on board. 

Some years ago a bear was attacked by a boat, and in 
trying to get into the bow the harpooneer cut off one of its 
paws with his axe; it then got into the stem of the boat, 
when the boat-steerer jumped overboard; it then cleared the 
boat, of which it held possession until it was shot, the men, 
in the meanwhile, hanging on in the water by the oars. 

During the day we saw several whales running to the 
N.W., but could not get near enough to any of them to 
strike. 

23rd. — Early this morning, while coasting along the edge 
of a floe, saw several whales running in the same direction 



66 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

to N.W. as yesterday, and sent six boats after them. For 
upwards of six hours they were unsuccessful. At last a boat 
laying at the floe's edge perceived two whales coming towards 
them, and as they passed, the harpooneer threw his harpoon 
at one of them, and got fast. It was killed without any 
particular occurrence. The ship, as usual, was made fast 
to the edge of the floe. The whale was then brought alongside 
and flinched. 

When finished, stood to the westward, as that was the 
course taken by the whales. 

24th. — Still sailing to the westward. No whales seen. 

25th. — Stood to the westward until we were stopped by 
the ice. We saw no whales, but passed several bears. Got 
through an opening in the ice, and bore away to the north- 
ward. 

26th. — Quite calm, and warm weather. We saw two bears 
on the ice, and sent a couple of boats after them. We lost 
sight of one of them entirely; the other kept ranging about 
without perceiving or noticing the boats. After we had left 
the ship, six of the men, more foolhardy than the others, 
insisted on attacking it on the ice. They armed themselves 
with harpoons and whale-lances, and set off, leaving one man 
in their boat. They had proceeded 150 or 200 yards with 
great difficulty, on account of the depth and softness of the 
snow, as well as of the great inequalities of the ice, when the 
bear either saw or smelt them. At any rate it stopped and 
turned round, and looked full at them. Whether it was that 
they did not like its looks, or that their courage failed them, 
but with one consent they turned tail, and made for the 
boat, tumbling down every few steps; and although the bear 
paid no attention to them, but was making towards the other 
boat, they did not stop to see whether its head or tail was 
towards them until they were safely on board of their boat. 
In the meanwhile the bear was making his way to the boat 
in which the captain and I were waiting for him. When he 
got to the edge of the ice he took to the water, and swam 
rapidly towards us. When at a short distance, Capt. D. 
fired at it, and the ball went through its body. It at once 
turned about and got on the ice, where it rolled over and 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 57 

over, and clapped snow on the wounds in its sides, growling 
all the while. At last it again got into the water and made 
towards us. I fired at it, but the gun would not go off, hav- 
ing got wetted with the splashing of the oars. Capt. Dannatt 
then ordered the boat to be rowed very rapidly past it, and 
at the moment of passing he thrust the whale-lance through 
its body; it still swam after us with astonishing rapidity, 
particularly when the nature of its wounds are considered. 
However, not being able to get near us, it stopped and tried 
to get the whale-lance out of its body; it failed, but gnawed 
the stock in pieces. The boat was again rowed quickly past 
it, and another lance thrust into it. It then, with great 
difficulty, got upon a piece of ice, and crawled to the other 
side, very evidently with the idea of escaping. It lay on the 
ice growling at us until it died. In the afternoon a breeze 
sprang up, and enabled us to pursue our way to the N.W. 

27th. — ^At midnight several whales were seen, and, after 
many fruitless attempts, a harpooneer struck one of them; 
it went down, and remained about an hour, when it came 
up. No boat dared to approach it, as it kept one of its fins 
menacingly in the air. A harpooneer threw his harpoon at 
it, and fortunately got fast, but had his boat injured by a 
blow from its tail. When the whale rose again, it again 
struck at one of the boats with its tail. The blow fortunately 
fell short of the boat, but struck the oars on one side, making 
them fly up in the air. One of the men was hurt by the 
springing of his oar. In two hours more it was killed. The 
ship was made fast as usual, the whale brought alongside, 
and got on board as usual. 

At 7 in the morning the decks were cleared, when two 
whales were seen. Six boats were sent after them. One 
was struck and killed in three hours; and after being got on 
board in the usual manner, the ship was cast-off, and beat 
towards the head of the floe. 

28th. — ^At three this morning we got to the head of the 
floe, and saw several whales, and sent six boats in three 
parties. Two of the boats, while lying at the edge of the 
ice, perceived a flock of unicorns coming towards them. 
One of the harpooneers threw his harpoon at one, and 



58 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

struck it; it was soon killed, and was taken to the ship. 
During his absence his comrade saw three whales coming 
towards him, and struck one, but for the want of assistance 
was obliged to let it go, after it had run all his lines out. 
About the same time a whale was harpooned by one of the 
other boats, and soon killed; but before the five boats had 
secured their lines, a barrier of pieces of ice came down and 
beset them. As this barrier was about a mile and a-half 
broad, we on board had very serious apprehensions for their 
safety and for the loss of the whale. The ice continued to 
come down till six o'clock in the evening, when it peeled off 
again as rapidly as it had come down; and in an hour and 
a-half more the boats and the whale were liberated, after an 
imprisonment of 15 hours. As soon as they were free, and 
whilst returning to the ship, they met a young whale, and 
very soon killed it. 

30th. — Quite calm and warm, but still hazy. 

July 1st. — Strong breezes. The ship still anchored to the 
ice. Sent the boats after two whales, but without success. 

3rd. — To-day, killed a very large bear, and handed his skin 
to the sailors to be footed. Ship made out to sea, intending 
to get to the northward. 

4th. — In open sea, and proceeding to the northward. In 
the evening, fell in with two Dutch ships, clean. 

5th. — Stood into the ice again. No whales to be seen. 

6th, 7th and Sth. — Thick and foggy; weather quite warm. 

9th. — ^Made fast to a floe for the purpose of filling our 
fresh-water casks from the ice. As one of the boats was 
leaving the ship, the steersman broke his oar in pushing off, 
and fell into the water; as the boat had way on at the time, 
it went a short distance ahead; on returning, owing to the 
unskilfulness of the man who undertook to steer, the har- 
pooneer could not reach him, and he sank. He saw him under 
water, and tried to get hold of him with a boat-hook, but 
failed. He was a fine young man — a native of Berwick, and 
22 years of age. 

11th. — Being nearly full, Capt. Dannatt determined to 
abandon any further attempts to capture the whale, and to 
proceed homewards. 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 59 

13th. — Were surrounded by the remains of a wrecked 
vessel — loose spars, companion- doors, &c.; among them was 
a topmast with the name "Rover, of Bristol"; but as no 
Greenland-man of that name sailed out of Bristol, or out of 
any Bristish port, it was supposed to be some merchantman 
who had been driven out of her course and perished among 
the ice. Among the floating wreck was one piece very 
suggestive: it was a substitute for a rudder, made out of a 
topmast and jibboom, with spars fastened across by copper 
nails, long pieces of iron, ships' bolts, wooden trenails, and 
rope. It was attempted to be weighted down by seven 
fathoms of chain-cable. In the evening, got into a stream 
of ice, on which were immense numbers of seals, but failed 
to take them. 

17th. — ^Very nearly captured a very large sea-horse, which 
we found asleep on a piece of ice. 

19th. — Were surrounded by immense shoals of herrings, 
swimming close to the surface of the water, and causing it to 
present a very peculiar appearance. We tried all sorts of 
plans to take some, but failed. A number of bottlenoses — 
"Baloena-Rostrata" — accompanied them, and seemed to be 
more successful. In the evening a gale came on, and blew 
with great violence from N.E., which drove the ship at the 
rate of nine knots, with a close-reefed fore-topsail. 

20th. — The gale continues with less violence. In the even- 
ing a man on deck declared he saw land, and was heartily 
laughed at for the idea. A few hours later, however, the 
weather cleared up, and discovered us close in to Trinity 
Island, at Jan Mayen, from which we supposed ourselves to 
be far distant. A very few hours' continuance of the foggy 
weather would have reduced the Trafalgar to the condition 
of the Rover, of Bristol, whose remains we saw a week ago. 
The ship was immediately close-hauled, and stood to the 
eastward, giving Jan Mayen what the seamen call "a wide 
berth." 

29 th. — We got among great quantities of sea- weeds, herb- 
age, star-fish, &c., indicating our vicinity to land. The nights 
now are an hour and a-half long. 



60 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

30th. — Calm. Surrounded for the first time by numbers 
of large dark-coloured birds, called boatswains by the sailors, 
from two long, stiff, and sharp-pointed feathers, which form 
the tail, and give the resemblance to a marlin-spike. They 
seem to be regular pirates. They do not fish for themselves; 
but when they perceive any other bird with a fish, they 
pursue, and do not cease tormenting it until it drops the fish, 
which they generally secure before it drops into the water. 

From this time until our arrival in Shetland, on the 7th 
August, the Trafalgar was generally in soundings, and I 
caught abundance of mackerel, coal-fish, cod, and ling. Our 
stay in Brassa Sound was merely long enough to enable the 
agent to pay off our Shetland-men. We then proceeded to 
Hull, where we arrived on the 21st of August, without any 
particular occurrence. 

My father added to his original Journal the fol- 
lowing notes: 

This journal terminates rather abruptly on the 30th of 
July. The original notes were continued daily, untill the 
Trafalgar's arrival in Hull, and a few pages were added, 
which now might be of interest to my friends, but the origi- 
nal journal and notes were unfortunately wetted by the up- 
setting of my canoe in the surf when landing on the coast 
of Poyais, and was greatly destroyed by my neglect to dry 
it. The latter part was intirely destroyed, which will account 
for its abrupt termination. 

In the preceding journal, I have given an account of the 
mode of cutting up the whale, or "flensing" it, as the opera- 
tion is called by the whalers. The large pieces are cut off 
squarely, — ^hoisted on deck, and at once lowered into the be- 
tween decks, forward, by means of tackles and windlasses. 
The crew is then mustered, and armed with hooks and long 
knives, the masses of blubber are seized, placed on rough low 
tables, and cut up into longish pieces, weighing ten or 
twelve pounds each; they are then transmitted into the hold 
of the ship, thro' a long canvas tube or funnel, the mouth 
of which opens into the bung hole of a cask, untill it is filled, 
when the bung is replaced, only to be removed in the smelting 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 61 

house, in Hull. The lower or ground tier is of casks of 
larger size, which are filled with fresh water, and, ad interim 
serve as ballast, for washing decks, and for ordinary purposes 
where extreme pureness is not required. 

This process of cutting the blubber into strips, and bar 
relling it, is called "making off." These operations of flens 
ing, and making off, leave the decks and the between decks 
clear and clean, and leaves the blubber to be rendered, after 
the ship's arrival in Hull. 

In the South sea whale fisheries, the climate makes the 
process of rendering or reducing the blubber into oil, com- 
pulsory at once, or at least very shortly after the animal 
is killed. The oil, thus rendered, is then brought home in 
huge tanks. In the Greenland ships, excepting those in the 
lower tier in the hold, the casks are shipped in their staves, 
and are only set up on board, when, or as required. 

As may be seen by the perusal of my journal, the great 
object of the Trafalgar's voyage was the killing of the whale, 
every thing was rendered subsidiary to that, vessels, as the 
Trafalgar did, sometimes left England a couple of weeks 
earlier, for the seal hunting on the shores, or on the ice, off 
the island of San Meyn, and the venture was sometimes ex- 
tremely fortunate. The killing of seals however is very un- 
certain, sometimes counting by thousands, and sometimes, like 
the Trafalgar, without seeing any. 

In Greenland, the hunt of a whale, or, of a polar bear had 
the same sameness, the object, in either case being to take 
and to keep the animal away from the shelter of the ice, 
where only he could find shelter. The whale being a warm 
blooded animal, consequently possesses a heart and lungs, 
and sustains life only by breathing the air, which, of course, 
it is obliged to come to the surface to do. It however pos- 
sesses the faculty or the power of sustaining life without 
breathing, for a very much longer time than any other warm 
blooded animal I am acquainted with. 

The female whale like all warm blooded animals, has a 
womb and teats, and suckles its young, of which it pro- 
duces one at a birth, at any rate among the droves of 
whales I have seen, I never could perceive one with twins. 



62 MY FATHER ^S JOURNAL 

During the Trafalgar's stay in the ice, twenty one whales 
were killed, and were fully secured. 

Four polar Bears were killed, by arrangement with Gapt. 
Dannatt, the third bear fell to my lot, I however lost it, 
for after it had been seduced from the shelter of the ice to 
following the boat, my gun would not go off, and it was 
shot by Captain Dannatt. I therefore declined to take the 
skin, preferring the chance of getting another, and, as it 
turned out, I was amply compensated, for the Bear shot on 
the 3d of July, fell to my gun; it was a very large one, a 
male, its skin when dressed, measuring nine feet from nose 
to tail, with due stretching, the tail of the Polar Bear, how- 
ever, is very short, in fact is a mere stump. 

The mode of dressing the skins was a i>eculiar one, and 
I have only seen it practiced in Greenland, two long oars 
were fixed about breast high from the lower deck, and about 
three feet apart, the Bear's skin was then put into a large 
canvas bag, with a quantity of sawdust, and trodden down 
under foot, backwards and forwards, by one of the crew. 
This process was called footing, and it was continued for 
many days, untill the skin was deprived of all its moisture, 
and was reduced to a state resembling chamois leather. The 
hair was in no way injured by this process of footing. 

This skin did duty as a hearth rug until my mother's 
death, and now is in the keeping of my sister, Mrs. Dale, 
apparently little the worse for the wear of sixty years. 

During the Trafalgar's stay in the ice, twenty-one whales 
were killed. They were however mostly males, and in pro- 
portion to their age, and to the size of their whalebone or 
strainers, they yielded less thickness of blubber than fe- 
males. The Trafalgar's voyage however was a successful 
one, a very profitable one to the owners, and a very pleasant 
and instructive one to me, and profitable to me far beyond 
my salary, and my interest in the whale money, as it gave 
me a knowledge of men and things, and gave me moreover 
habits of thought, of study, and of self reliance, which very 
materially served me in after life. 

My engagement with the owners of the Trafalgar, com- 
prised four guineas a month, a guinea for every whale killed, 



1 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 63 

and a guinea for every thousand of seals killed, of these 
however, we killed none. 

As the Rum, Tea, Sugar and Tobacco were supplied duty 
free, it seemed to be understood that it was not worth while to 
return a quantity of broken stores to the custom house at 
the close of the voyage, these consequently were divided 
among Capt. Dannatt, Mr. Ashe, and me. When the great 
number of vessels from Hull, engaged in the whale fishery is 
considered, it may easily be imagined that the amount of 
customs dues, paid by the attendants on the docks, for their 
private use, was homoapathic. — Which being interpreted means 
that these followers of John Wesley bribed the custom offi- 
cials with part of the surplus stores for passing the balance. 

The autobiography continues: 

**0n the termination of my Arctic voyage, I found 
my Father stationed at Brigg, in Lincobishire, where 
I spent a month, before returning to Edinburgh to 
finish the prescribed Curriculum there. During this 
second Winter session, I one day wandered into the 
lecture room of Mr. Robert List on, a private lecturer 
on Anatomy and Surgery, and I was so much struck 
by his manner and by the clear and masterly way in 
which he treated his subject, that although I had 
taken the ticket of the College Professor, I entered 
myself as a pupil of Mr. Liston, and I have reason to 
attribute a great measure of my success in my profes- 
sion, to his precepts and example. Mr. Liston had a 
room for practical anatomy, which was superintended 
by Mr. Syme, his pupil and assistant. I took the 
ordinary ticket of admission, but, from the extravagant 
prices demanded for subjects, I had little prospect of 
being able to dissect. Fortune favoured me however, 
for among the very small number of students who 
attended the Class was a Creole gentleman; he was 



64 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

very extensively got up for a dissecting room. He 
wore Md gloves, and being rather shy of using the 
scalpel, was delighted to get me to use it for him, 
while he took the book. 

**I again attended the two courses of lectures on 
Anatomy and Surgery, by Dr. Barclay. I attended 
the lectures on Military Surgery by Dr. Thompson, 
and which in my opinion were not worth the fees 
which I had paid for them. I was the recipient of a 
very delicate and beautiful act of Mndness, at the 
hands of Dr. Home, the lecturer on Materia Medica. 
When I called upon him to take the ticket for his 
course of lectures, he asked me why I had not taken it 
the previous winter session ; I told him that iatendiag 
to go to Greenland, I would have been obliged to leave 
Edinburgh, before the close of his course. He then 
entered into a lengthy conversation with me on the 
anatomy and the habits of the different denizens of 
the Arctic regions, with which he evidently was very 
well acquainted, and in which he seemed to be much 
interested. After giving me my ticket and receiving 
his fees, he accompanied me to the passage, where he 
very kindly shook hands with me, and closed the door, 
leaving in my hands the four guineas, which I had just 
paid him. I stood at the door for a minute or two, 
struggling with varied feelings of wounded pride and 
a sense of his consideration to me, a perfect stranger. 
The latter predominated. On the 7th day of April, 
1820, I passed my examination before the Royal Col- 
lege of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and received my 
diploma *' 



r 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 65 

Student life in Edinburgh had not changed when 
I was a student there forty years later. The 1,500 
lads, mostly poor, who annually attended the Uni- 
versity lectures, still lived as they had done a cen- 
tury ago. A good room with a sleeping closet could 
be had in parts of the old town for $1.25 a week, 
the rent including service, cooking and fuel; and 
two sumptuous rooms could be rented for $2.50 on 
the same conditions. If you were so fortunate as 
to have a landlady who did not help herself out of 
your larder, you could live healthfully on 25 cents 
a day. The poorer students, especially if sons of 
farmers, received their oatmeal and butter from 
home; others either bought their own provisions or 
trusted their landlady to cater for them on a pre- 
scribed dietary. 

Edinburgh having been for centuries a univer- 
sity town under the Scotch system, where the stu- 
dents' relations to the college begin and end with 
attendance at lectures, and having been, like all 
Scotch universities, attended by poor students, the 
system of board and lodging has accommodated itself 
to their circumstances; but it is one which might be 
advantageously copied in some of its features else- 
where. 

Although this system does not encourage that cor- 
porate spirit and emulation in pursuits physical and 
intellectual, which the English collegiate system fos- 
ters, and which our own is imitating, it does 
strengthen that spirit of self-reliance which is, per- 
haps, already strong enough, without further en- 
couragement, in the Scotch character. The Scotch 



I 



66 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

student always looks back with satisfaction to the 
period when he was thrown on his own resources 
and honor, free from the restraints of school and 
home, and uncontrolled by other authority than that 
which the common law enforces. My father, how- 
ever, needed no stimulus of that kind. 

Of late the tendency has been to correct the isola- 
tion of the old university system and to unite the 
students and graduates more and more in associate 
action. The S. F. C. (the Students' Representative 
Council), the Union, the Students' Clubs and other 
organizations, which had no existence in my father's 
or my day, must have greatly modified the life of the 
University. The first move in this direction was made 
in 1859-1860, when the students were called on to 
elect a Lord Rector, and a choice was made which 
may have had very far-reaching results. 

The candidates were Lord Nairn, a Lord of Ses- 
sions, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Carlyle. The Judge of 
Sessions carried the votes of only the extreme Kirk 
party. There were not enough radical votes to elect 
Carlyle, and Gladstone came in at the head of the 
polls, though many of us felt it was an insult to 
our own university system to elect even to the per- 
functory office of Lord Rector the Parliamentary 
representative of an English university and who would 
be too wedded and prejudiced, in favor of English 
ways of life and methods to be impartial. But 
we little dreamt of the marvelous political versa- 
tility and cosmopolitan capacity of Lord Palmer- 
ston's Chancellor of the Exchequer. We realized 
his intellectual versatility when he rushed up from 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 67 

London, after holding the House spellbound by one 
of his brilliant budget orations, to describe to us, in 
a two hours' speech, the universities of the Middle 
Ages; but no one foresaw in the supposed embodi- 
ment of Englishism the future member for Midlo- 
thian, or the political idol of his dear Scotland. The 
decision of that rabble of Scotch boys, by first draw- 
ing Mr. Gladstone's inexhaiistible sympathies toward 
Scotland, may have had an influence on the destinies 
of the Empire. 

After taking his degree in Edinburgh my father 
proceeded to London for the purpose of graduating 
there also in surgery. The subterfuge by which he 
evaded the rules, requiring all applicants to be at 
least twenty-two years of age, illustrates several 
phases of his character: his indomitable deter- 
mination to compass his purpose; the courage with 
which he would meet a difficulty; a slight tendency 
to accept and adopt the principle that the end jus- 
tifies the means, and a keen enjoyment of a game of 
finesse. He was always willing to fight with any 
weapons— no one bolder in a face-to-face fight— but 
he could dissemble when it served his purpose. He 
thus tells the story of how he coolly handed the mag- 
nates of the Royal College the proofs of his own 
disqualification, and yet passed. One of his students 
long afterwards, doubting the occurrence, turned 
up the records, and while admitting his suspicions 
confirmed the fact. 

*'I at once proceeded to London, and attached my- 
self to the practice in Guy's, and in St. Bartholomew's 
Hospitals, and to attendance on the lectures of Mr. 



68 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

Abemethy, and of Sir Astley Cooper. My object was 
to be admitted a member of the Royal College of 
Surgeons, in London. My maternal uncle, Dr. James 
Mellis was then, and had been for many years in the 
service of the Honourable East India Company. He 
had written to his agents, Messrs. Fairlie, Bonham 
and Co., in London, instructing them to pay all ex- 
penses connected with my admission as member of 
the College. There however was an obstacle in my 
age; the bye-law of the College required candidates 
for Membership to be at least 22 years of age, and I 
would only be 20 on the day after examination. No 
declaration was admitted, but a certificate or a copy 
of the baptismal register. I procured the latter from 
my Grandfather in Aberdeen. 

''On the evening of the 19th. May, 1820, I pre- 
sented myself at the College for examination. When 
called, I was conducted to the President, Sir David 
Dundas, who required my tickets and certificates j I 
gave them to him, along with my Diploma from 
Edinburgh; He looked them over, and asked for the 
certificate of my age; I handed to him my Grand- 
father's letter, enclosing the extract from the Parish 
register. He commenced reading the letter and asked 
me what it meant. I told him that the certificate of 
my birth was on the other page and seeing that it 
was a baptismal record, he stuck it on a fyle without 
reading it. I being of course anxious to retain it, 
asked him to return it to me; He replied that they 
were always fyled. I told him that I was about to 
embark for India, where I might require it, and would 



SURGEON OF A WHALER 69 

not then have time to procure another; Upon this he 
took it off the file and returned it to me. 

*^I was then conducted to Sir Everard Home, and 
Mr. Keate, who examined me on the Anatomy of 
the Urinary Organs, and who seemed satisfied with 
my answers. The Gentleman with the gold stick, 
then preceeded me into the Museum, where nine, out 
of the fourteen candidates were mustered. We then 
returned into the Hall, where Sir David addressed 
us at some length, and after the customary oaths had 
been taken, we departed. The ceremonies through- 
out were very imposing, and much more calculated to 
impress the mind with the dignity of the profession, 
than the examination of candidates in Edinburgh. 

''The following day, being my twentieth birthday, 
I returned to the College, where Sir E. Balfour, the 
Secretary, presented me with my Diploma, which 
constituted me a Member of the Royal College of 
Surgeons, in London. A few days afterwards, I 
was elected a Member of the Royal Jennerian Socie- 
ty, and of the London Vaccine Institution, and re- 
ceived their diplomas, which I still possess." 

He was now fairly launched in life, but he had 
to pass through two or three eventful episodes be- 
fore settling down to its routine duties. 

A year in India was a startling contrast to the 
summer in Greenland. His narrative of his India 
experience is again a copy from a contemporaneous 
journal, a portion only of whose torn and faded 
leaves survived the Poyais expedition. 



1 



CHAPTER III 

A YEAR IN INDIA AND ANOTHER IN GOING AND 
RETURNING 

Like so many Englishmen then and since, he had 
family ties attracting him to India. His uncle on 
his mother's side was a medical man in the East 
India Company's service. His brother-in-law was 
an Indian judge, and his brother-in-law's uncle a 
director of the company. With such influence to 
back him he looked forward to a permanent appoint- 
ment in India, but meanwhile he accepted tempo- 
rary employment and was attached to the artillery 
at Dum Dum, near Calcutta. He went out as surgeon 
to the free trader, *'The Theodosia," owned by Mr. 
Gladstone, of Liverpool, the late Premier's father. 
The voyage out occupied six months and the return 
voyage the same endless time. Card playing was the 
principal occupation on board, and repentance be- 
cause of such a woeful waste of time made him 
forswear that innocent amusement during the whole 
of his subsequent active life. They called in at 
Funchal, Madeira, sailed in sight of the Peak of 
Teneriffe and landed on rocky San Antonio, one of 
the Cape Verde Islands, for fresh provisions, as their 



72 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

live stock had been washed overboard in the Bay of 
Biscay. The natives, semi-civilized blacks, treated 
them hospitably, rescued them from the surf when 
upset, and sold them dried goat's meat, as well as 
fruit, raised on the small patches of soil which had 
accumulated on the rocky ravines. On parting the 
doctor gave the chief his shoes and stockings and a 
match box. This was before the days of the lucifer. 
The apparatus contained matches tipped with chlo- 
ride of potash and a bottle of asbestos saturated 
with oil of vitriol. The combination went off with 
greater explosive violence than a safety or a parlor 
match and threw the natives into raptures. 

The scanty stock of vegetables and dried meat was 
soon exhausted, and scurvy made its appearance be- 
fore reaching Ascension, where they stopped for tur- 
tle. He describes the island, which was being used 
as a kind of sentry box to watch St. Helena, and 
was in a transitory state just after its occupation, as 
follows : 

** Bonaparte, at this time, was a prisoner on St. 
Helena, and all communication with the island was 
most rigidly interdicted. Ascension also was occu- 
pied by a party of Marines, under the command of 
Lieutenant Campbell, who sent a gunner on board 
with a request to Capt. Kidson to go on shore. I 
went with him. As a heavy surf breaks on the shore, 
a curious contrivance has been adopted, for effect- 
ing a landing; from a rocky promontory which runs 
outside of the surf, an iron chain is attached to a 
floating barrel, which is anchored about 30 feet off. 
A boat approaching, gets hold of the chain, and is 



A YEAR IN INDIA 73 

gradually eased in, to within a foot of the rock, 
when the person may step out. Steps cut out of the 
rock ascend to its top, where the person may walk 
along the promontory to the mainland. On landing 
we proceeded to the settlement, which is about a 
quarter of a mile off, and consists of several houses 
and sheds, which form a square. 

'* Ascension Island is in longitude 14° West and 
in latitude 75° 57 M. south. It is entirely of volcanic 
origin, the greater part of the island is lava, many 
of the rocks are half fused, some are burnt to a cin- 
der, and are red and crumbling. There are three or 
four hills, or rather cones; I could perceive no sign 
of soil, or of vegetation, there was no water; in 
fact, the first question asked, was, could we spare 
them a cask or two of water. When Napoleon was 
exiled to St. Helena, Ascension was taken possession 
of, as it was thought, that if he should escape, it 
could only be in an open boat, and that South Amer- 
ica being too distant, he could only make for Ascen- 
sion. The square on which the houses of the Ma- 
rines and of the women and children are built, has 
been cleared, with great labour, of the rocks with 
which it was covered; the houses are of wood, and 
are small and incommodious. We were very hos- 
pitably received. We dined and supped with the 
mess. We then proceeded to a white sandy beach, 
where we took nine turtle, weighing from five to 
seven hundred weight each." 

On the return voyage he writes: 

** After a pleasant run through the southern trade 
winds, we reached Ascension Island. Here I found 



74 MY FATHEK'S JOURNAL 

matters very much altered since my former visit. 
Napoleon had died at St. Helena, and it had been 
determined to continue the occupation of Ascension 
Island. Accordingly, some of the wooden huts were 
being replaced by stone barracks, for a party of ma- 
rines. A very small spring of water had issued from 
the very highest summit of the hill, which was about 
three thousand feet. A space was being cleared of 
the igneous rocks, around the spring, and it was the 
intention to bring some soil from the Cape, and at- 
tempt to raise salad. Dr. Thompson, an old feUow 
student, was in medical charge. He had been sta- 
tioned at St. Helena, at the time of Napoleon's 
death; and gave me an account of the postmortem 
appearances. He also gave me a lock of his hair, and 
some of the snuff, out of the magnificent gold snuff 
box which Buonaparte had given to Dr. Antomarchi, 
his medical attendant, which snuff Dr. A. had di- 
vided with the medical gentlemen ! The little ground 
thus recovered still supplies the twenty-seven in- 
habitants with vegetables and fruit." 

To return to the story of the outward voyage: 
"Turtle was a delicious substitute for salt junk, 
but of all articles for a steady diet, turtle must soon 
become the most nauseating. ' ' And therefore, as the 
Journal says : ' ' Though our cook was a good one and 
served up turtle three times a day in various forms, 
after a while we lost our extreme relish for it, and 
bye and bye, being completely surfeited with it, we 
could not bear the sight of it upon the table. The 
sailors' mess was supplied with turtle, and the same 
symptoms of disrelish began to be exhibited by the 



A YEAR IN INDIA 75 

seamen. At last a deputation came aft to petition 
Capt. Kidson to give orders to serve out the usual 
allowance of salt beef, instead of turtle. Some said 
that the turtle made them sick, some said that it 
gave them bowel complaint, and others said that it 
took away their strength, so that they could not do 
their work. Capt. Kidson listened to their com- 
plaints with a serious face, and calling the steward, 
ordered him to serve out to the messes their usual 
allowance of salt beef, and to hang up the turtle, 
when killed, at the ship's stern. Then, addressing 
the men, he said, 'Now, my good fellows, you have 
your junk again, and if I catch any of you meddling 
with my turtle, why, look out.' This went well 
enough for three or four days, when mutterings were 
again heard from the seamen,— 'too bad; is it not a 

d d shame, plentj^ of fine fat turtle on board, 

and won't give us a bit.' Portions of the turtle, 
however, occasionally and mysteriously disappeared." 
They did not touch at the Cape, coasted along 
Ceylon, sailed in sight of the Coromandel coast and 
landed at Madras. Seven Indiamen, two Chinamen 
and some small craft constituted the entire fleet in 
the roadstead. There was no pier or breakwater, 
and landing was effected through the heavy surf in 
the elastic native Massoolah boats. Once on land, 
the boatmen handed their prey over to the palanquin 
owners. All of which first episode of Oriental travel 
leaves in the Westerner a much more picturesque 
impression than the clamor with which our cabmen 
assail a stranger. While the ship was in the roads 
he found the surgeon of an Indiaman willing to take 



76 MY FATHER ^S JOURNAL 

his duty, and he spent the interval with a missionary 
friend of his father, a Mr. Lynch, at Royah Pettah. 
The mission seems not to have made adequate re- 
turn for the labor expended on it, and the lack of 
Christian school teachers obliged the society in those 
early days to avail itself of heathen teachers, for 
the journal narrates that: "At Royah Pettah the 
missionaries have a school for native children, un- 
der the instruction of a Brahmin teacher; they are 
taught reading and writing, on sand, and strips of 
the olla leaf, on which latter their manuscripts are 
written, or rather scratched. The mission school, 
as well as the mission itself, is not in a thriving con- 
dition, although both have been in existence about 
seven years. There are twelve converts, the most of 
whom are employed about the establishment." 

His intimate relationship with prominent officials 
enabled him to see a little more of native society 
than most travelers can possibly enjoy, but his ac- 
count of what he saw indoors and out of doors is of 
less interest than his recollections of Carey and the 
effort of the early missionaries to induce the Gov- 
ernment to interfere in the interests of humanity 
against certain Hindoo customs: 

'* During my stay in India I was fortunate in 
maMng the acquaintance of the Rev. Dr. Carey, the 
Baptist missionary, who was an intimate friend of 
Mr. Dale (my brother-in-law). Dr. Carey and two 
colleagues, Messrs. Marshman and Ward, had come 
out to India about twenty years before for the pur- 
pose of evangelizing the heathen. The East India 
Company, having supreme power, refused to give 



A YEAR IN INDIA 77 

them permission to remain, and ordered them to 
return by a vessel about to sail. Dr. Carey and his 
colleagues took refuge under the Danish flag, at 
Serampore, a small station about fifteen miles from 
Calcutta, where they still reside. Dr. Carey suf- 
fered great persecution at the hands of intolerant 
officials for many years. He, as well as his col- 
leagues, were treated as low, meddling and ignorant 
fanatics, who had come out to disturb the religious 
feelings of the natives. The idea of being tolerated, 
or even acknowledged by Government officials was 
preposterous. Mr. Marshman had served his time in 
England as a printer, and Mr. Ward as a weaver. 
Dr. Carey, who, when I became acquainted with 
him, stood high in public estimation as a gentleman 
and a profound oriental scholar, had been, a while 
before, invited to dine with Lord Hastings, the Gov- 
ernor General. While in the ante-room, an officer 
of high rank, enquired of an aide-de-camp 'Was not 
that fellow a shoemaker ? ' Dr. Carey, who overheard 
the question, stepped forward and answered, 'Oh, 
no Sir, I was only a cobbler. ' 

"I was perfectly delighted with the little inter- 
course I had with Dr. Carey, and with the wonder- 
ful faculty which he possessed of conveying informa- 
tion. At that time (1821) the subject of Sutteeism, 
or the burning of widows alive, had been pressed very 
strongly on the Government by Dr. Carey and Mr. 
Marshman, who had collected copious statistics on 
the subject. They stated that during six months in 
1804, when their attention was first directed to the 
horrid rite, more than three hundred widows had 



78 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

been burnt alive, in the immediate vicinity of Cal- 
cutta alone. The Government, however, paid no at- 
tention to this appeal, Sutteeism, as well as all their 
other religious rites and ceremonies, having been se- 
cured to them by the Government. 

''Some years afterwards it was brought promi- 
nently before the Government and the public. To 
understand the circumstances of the case, I may 
state the usual ceremonies at a Suttee. The widow, 
having declared her intention to be burnt, a plat- 
form is erected on four green bamboo poles about 
ten or twelve feet long; on this platform or stage 
the dead husband is laid on his left side; the widow 
is then placed at his side, with her right arm under 
his head, and with his right arm and his right leg 
over her, the twain are then secured by bamboos 
lashed across them. The large space under the pile 
is then filled with branches and dry wood, plentifully 
smeared with native butter called 'Ghee,' or with 
oil. The widow's son or the nearest of kin, then 
sets fire to the combustibles amid the beating of torn 
toms and the most discordant music, and shouts from 
the crowd. This was the ordinary programme of a 
Suttee, of which I witnessed many on my way from 
Dum Dum to the city, and on one occasion I wit- 
nessed two being carried on at the same time, at 
some considerable distance from each other. These 
Suttees are always performed on the side of the 
river opposite to the road from Dum Dum to Cal- 
cutta, and I never was induced to cross the river for 
a nearer view. 



A YEAR IN INDIA 79 

''However, as I have stated, the practice had been 
brought before the Government, as follows: On one 
occasion, the widow had extricated herself from the 
pile, and had run off. The friends had caught her, 
placed her again on the pile, and burnt her. Mr. 
Carey laid an information against them; nothing, 
however, was done to them, but the Governor Gen- 
eral in Council issued an order that no Suttee should 
take place except under a permit granted by a Com- 
missioner appointed for the purpose, and this permit 
was only obtained on the affidavits of her relatives 
that it was the widow's own desire, and that no un- 
due means had been used to influence her. This was 
supposed to be an effectual mode of at least dimin- 
ishing the numbers of Suttees; on the contrary, it 
increased them. The priests flourished the permit 
in the faces of the people, saying, 'See here, the 
Government recognizes the rite, it has given a token 
(Hookum) for its performance.* Under these cir- 
cumstances a strong appeal was again made to Lord 
Hastings, after my departure from India, and it 
was proved to him, that since the first appeal in 
1804, seventy thousand widows had been burnt alive 
in India. These statements may, at this day, appear 
incredible, but they are matters of fact, and of rec- 
ord, and facts are stubborn things. It is also a fact, 
that shortly after the abolition of Sutteeism, a large 
body of the Priests and others waited upon the Gov- 
ernor, to thank him for his action in doing away 
with so abhorrent a rite. His Lordship replied, by 
congratulating them on the change in the minds of 
the priesthood, and on the spread of more liberal 



80 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

and enlightened ideas among the people; he re- 
minded them that only twenty years before Lord 
Wellesly had desired to abolish Sutteeism, but had 
been strongly opposed by their predecessors, who 
had insisted that it was a sacred rite, which had been 
observed from the beginning of the world, and that, 
moreover, its observance had been secured to them, 
along with that of their other religious rites and 
ceremonies. This was the end of at least the public 
practice of burning widows alive. It was, and is 
still, the custom among the natives of the upper 
country to throw the bodies of their dead into the 
sacred river, where, after a few hours, decomposi- 
tion takes place, they float on the surface and are 
brought down past Calcutta, by the current; the 
head and feet being under water, and the trunk ex- 
posed, generally with two or more carrion crows 
seated upon it. Frequently, the bodies are washed 
ashore, when they are immediately attacked by the 
vultures and adjutants. The vultures seem to at- 
tack the muscular parts and the adjutants seem to 
prefer the viscera. It was curious and interesting 
to observe the habits and motions of these obscene 
birds. On opening the abdomen, which he did 
very adroitly, the adjutant would seize hold of the 
end of the intestine, and then half skipping and half 
flying along the ground, would turn round and 
gobble up the intestine, as he returned to the body. 
As the ships lay off the different Ghaats, the bodies 
frequently got across the cables, or the vessel's 
bows, a dingie-wallah was stationed at each Ghant, 



A TEAR IN INDIA 81 

whose sole duty it was to clear the bodies and pass 
them on/' 

So much for 1821 ! The Government surely de- 
serves some credit for the change which has taken 
place since then. 

In order to secure a permanent appointment in 
the company's service, he returned to England in 
1823 as surgeon of the East Indiaman "Competitor." 
He ends his Journal by a short account of his return 
voyage : 

"It having been decided some years before, that 
I should receive an appointment as surgeon in the 
Company's service, and as this appointment could 
only be given by the Court of Directors, it was 
necessary that I should return home for the purpose 
of receiving it. I certainly could have received em- 
ployment in India, under what was termed a Free 
Mariner's Indenture, but as this would not insure 
promotion or rank, I was advised not to accept it, 
but to return to England for the appointment from 
the Directors. As the ship 'Competitor' had lost 
her surgeon, I was offered a very handsome sum to 
do the medical duties on the passage to London. 

"After leaving Calcutta, the vessel remained some 
days at Saugor Island at the mouth of the Ganges, 
for the purpose of taking in stores, and filling up the 
full complement of the crew ; this was effected by the 
Government schooner bringing down some deserters, 
and several seamen who had been left in hospital, from 
different ships. This, in my opinion was unwise, 
as the cholera was then prevailing in Calcutta; 
without going into the question of the mode of trans- 



it 



82 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

mission of cholera, I have merely to state, that on the 
tenth day after the ship left the anchorage at San- 
gor Island, the Asiatic cholera broke out on board, 
and during the ensuing ten days there were several 
cases, of whom two died. During my connection 
with the Hospital at Dum Dum, I saw several cases, 
and was told by my uncle Dr. Mellis, that it was a 
specific disease of the country, and that its intensity 
varied at different times and seasons. Among the 
medical men of the Presidency, there were different 
opinions, as well as to its nature, as to its treatment. 
I followed the treatment adopted at the Hospital at 
Dum Dum. After a somewhat tedious, but extremely 
pleasant passage, we arrived at the Cape of Good 
Hope; and as the ship 'Competitor' had to discharge 
and to take in cargoe, our stay in Table Bay was pro- 
tracted to nearly a month. During this period, I 
enjoyed myself exceedingly in visits and excursions 
to places of interest in the neighbourhood, and in 
social intercourse with the Missionaries, and with their 
families, and with some Dutch families, with whom I 
had become acquainted. 

**The Cape and its dependencies had been taken 
from the Dutch about eighteen years before; the 
Caucasian inhabitants in the Colony were almost ex- 
clusively Dutch, and they formed the great majority 
of those in Cape Town. The English were compara- 
tively few in number, and consisted principally of 
Government officials and of a very few merchants. 
The Missionary field was occupied by Mr. Moffat 
(father-in-law of Dr. Livingston) and by Mr. Hodg- 
son, the former representing the London Missionary 



A YEAR IN INDIA 83 

Society, and the latter the Wesleyan Methodists. To 
Mr. Hodson in particular, I was greatly indebted 
for much valuable information and guidance in my 
excursions from Cape Town into the country. 

*'I did not find the Dutch Boers, whom I met in 
my rambles very amiable or communicative, they 
had evidently not become accustomed to Englishmen, 
or to English rule and occupation, which then had 
only existed in the Colony about sixteen years. 
Those within reach of my excursions seemed to de- 
vote themselves principally to the cultivation of the 
grape-vine. 

"After a pleasant run through the Southern trade 
winds, we reached Ascension Island." 

I have quoted already his account of change which 
in the interval had been wrought on the island. 

''After taking some turtle, we continued our 
passage to London, where we arrived without stop- 
page, and without any occurrence on board, worth 
mentioning. I parted from the ship's officers and the 
passengers with regret." 

He did not take service under the East India Com- 
pany, as will be told in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER IV 

IN MEDICAL CHARGE OF THE POYAIS SETTLEMENT ON 
THE COAST OF HONDURAS 

His next professional engagement determined the 
drift of his future life. It carried him to the West- 
ern Hemisphere, though far from the scene of his 
ultimate professional career. He was tempted by 
salary and love of adventure to join one of the many 
colonization projects, which were organized by pro- 
moters who took advantage, in furthering their 
schemes, of the enthusiasm excited by the struggle 
between her American colonies and Spain. Many 
Britons beside Lord Cochrane were enlisted in the 
ranks of the revolutionists. One of the lesser nota- 
bles was a Scotchman called The MacGregor, who 
claimed to be the chief of the clan Alpin, or Gregor, 
to be descended from the ancient kings of Scotland 
and entitled to prefix Sir to his name. 

Sir Gregor McGregor was the grandson of the 
McGregor who was brought from Scotland in the 
reign of George II. as a sample of a real High- 
lander who could handle the claymore. He and his 
son received commissions in the British Army. 



Se MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

The grandson was an adventurer, but not in the 
worst sense of the word. He went to Caracas in 
1811 and married a native, a niece of Bolivar, but 
what property he or she had was wrecked in the 
earthquake of 1812. When the first revolution broke 
out in 1812 he joined the revolutionists and was at- 
tached to the staff of General Miranda as colonel 
and adjutant general. He subsequently distin- 
guished himself as a cavalry officer and became a 
general of brigade. 

The anonymous South American who wrote the 
Outline of the Revolution in Spanish America says 
of Sir Gregor McGregor that ''He was a Scotchman 
who served in the British Army in Portugal and had 
been promoted to the rank of captain. In conse- 
quence of some misunderstanding with a superior 
officer he quitted the British Army and went to 
Caracas in 1811. After the earthquake he served 
in the army of Venezuela, which in the engagement 
of Los Guayos suffered considerably under his com- 
mand. After Miranda's capitulation Sir Gregor 
went to Carthagena, and from that time he has uni- 
formly supported the independent cause. 

''The victorious royalists pursued him furiously 
after the defeat of Bolivar, and such was their de- 
pendence on continued success that they even sent 
official information to Caracas that McGregor was 
totally defeated, killed, and the soldier was named 
who had spoiled him of his uniform in the field of 
battle.'' 

According to the sketch of his life in the National 
Biography, he showed military skill in the retreat 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 87 

from Ocumare to Barcelona and in the battle of 
Juncal and other engagements. In 1817 he was 
promoted to the command of a division and re- 
ceived the Order of the Libertadoris. 

His next adventure was a filibustering expedition 
against East Florida. He seized the Island of Ame- 
lia, but gained neither wealth nor glory. 

In an interesting book entitled, Narrative of a Voy- 
age to the Spardsh Main in the Ship ^'Two Friends;^' 
is told the story, by one of the members of the Amelia 
Expedition. He had joined a filibustering expedition 
in aid of Venezuelan independence, but abandoned it 
at St. Thomas to engage in the more promising ven- 
ture by McGregor against Amelia Island. At the 
time the Island belonged nominally to Spain, as a 
part of East Florida. These filibustering expeditions 
were not always looked upon very unfavorably by 
the United States Government, provided they were 
not organized with any unfriendly motive. The author 
says (pages 85-97) : 

"McGregor, disgusted with the system pursued by Gen- 
eral Bolivar (whose niece he had married), foreseeing from 
the disunion of the insurgent chiefs of Venezuela, and the 
little confidence they inspired in the respectable and en- 
lightened class of society in that division of Spanish Amer- 
ica, the present ruin of the popular cause, and the remote 
possibility of its recovery, quitted the patriot service on the 
main, and directed his attention to the United States, with 
whose views upon the Spanish provinces of the Floridas, he 
was well acquainted; and assured by their emissaries that a 
descent upon them from the union would not be opposed by 
the executive of that government. 

"Having collected several adventurers to his standard in 
the northern states, and raised some funds for his enterprise, 



88 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

lie proceeded to Charleston; liere numbers of respectable young 
men, who had imbibed a military spirit during the war with 
Great Britain, and were thrown out of employment by its 
termination, readily tendered their aid and assistance; but 
the impolitic expression of his feelings in favour of negro 
emancipation, deemed a species of political heresy in the 
slave states, joined to his arbitrary and unconciliating con- 
duct, soon detached them from his cause, and obliged Mc- 
Gregor to seek for succour and assistance in the more en- 
terprising and less scrupulous community of Savannah. 

"The mercantile establishment of C. and Co., of that city, 
relying upon the successful issue of McGregor's expedition, 
purchased of his anticipated conquest over the Province of 
East Florida, 30,000 acres of land, at one dollar per acre, 
and induced several of their friends to contribute to his 
support. 

"With these supplies, and the remnant of his associates, in 
all about 150, McGregor concentrated at the entrance of the 
river Altamaha, in Georgia, on which stands the flourishing 
settlement of Darien. Much time was consumed in the 
equipment of his forces, and numerous defections led to the 
further diminution of his partisans. . . . 

"The expedition being at length in a sufficient state of for- 
wardness to undertake its object, a partner in the house of 
C. and Co. already the holder of some landed property in 
Amelia, with the view of anticipating events, preceded them 
to that island, and by representing to the inhabitants a 
magnified and fabulous account of McGregor's forces, who 
he described as 1000 strong, and every way equipped to se- 
cure their objects, prepared their minds to forego its defence, 
and to lessen the confidence of the Spanish commandant in 
the means of resistance. 

"On the 9th of July, the little band of McGregor, attended 
by two schooners and a few row boats, passing the shores of 
Cumberland island, at the entrance of the river St. Mary's 
anchored in the Spanish waters of Amelia, disembarking in 
all about sixty muskets, under the very guns of the fort of 
Femandina, and two block houses intended as a defence for 
the rear of the town. McGregor, assisted by Colonel Posen, 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 89 

of the United States Army, as second in command, led his 
little band over a swamp, which divided the point of debarka* 
tion from the town, plunged up to their knees in mud, ex- 
posed to the means possessed by the Spaniards of totally an- 
nihilating them. To the cowardice of the Spanish com- 
mandant, and not to the talents of McGregor, must be at- 
tributed their success; for in this, the latter displayed an 
excess of folly in exposing his troops to the possible hos- 
tility of the garrison, which did not, as it happened, offer a 
single coup de canon of resistance from the fort, and only 
one gun was fired from the block house, and that without 
the orders of the commandant. 

"Possession of the fort and town being thus easily obtained, 
the prisoners were immediately sent to the main land. 

"McGregor feeling himself firmly seated in his conquest, 
and acquiring daily some addition to his forces, began to ar- 
range the system upon which its extension over the whole 
of the Floridas was to be founded; invited the insurgent 
privateers to make the Island of Amelia the depot of their 
prizes, and the vent of their cargoes. This acquisition of a 
port upon the Atlantic, and so near to the United States, 
was an object of the last importance to those swarms of 
Buccaneers who infest that ocean, and the islands of the 
West Indies, under the various flags of the republics of Mex- 
ico, Buenos Ayres, Venezuela, and others; who thereby 
avoided the danger and delay attending the carrying of their 
captures through the Gulf of Mexico to the Spanish Main, 
or to Galveston at the entrance of the river Trinity, where 
Lafite and his piratical gang had established a similar depot. 
Upon the cargoes of these prizes, the government of Amelia 
levied an impost of sixteen and a half per cent, upon the 
gross amount of sales, together with charges of admiralty 
courts, etc., for the current expenses of the establishment, 
and for the purpose of replenishing their military chest, al- 
ready too much exhausted to warrant a further progress 
in their meditated conquest of the provinces; the important 
prelude to which was the reduction of the fortress of St. 
Augustine, the seat of the government of East Florida, de- 



90 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

fended by a brave and tried soldier, Colonel Coppinger, whose 
loyalty to his sovereign was unquestionable. This subject 
occupied their attention, claiming the utmost consideration. 

"The fiscal system of, the occupiers of Amelia still lingered 
in poverty, and their resources, both in men and money, were 
as yet unequal to any enterprise beyond the walls of their 
garrison; various were the means suggested, and as often 
found fruitless in their attempts, to raise the consequence of 
their establishment, and the importance of their contemplated 
acquisitions. The people of the United States, shrewd though 
speculative, seeing no immediate prospect of gain, and doubt- 
ful of the capacity of those at Amelia to obtain any serious 
and valuable results to their enterprise, withheld the prom- 
ised assistance, and denied even to furnish them with the 
funds already raised for their necessities. 

"In the midst of this desolation, threatened with bank- 
ruptcy in their finances, and destruction to their plans, Col- 
onel Irvin, formerly an officer in the American Militia, and a 
member of Congress for the State of Vermont, who had been 
appointed Adjutant-General, succeeding the retirement of 
Colonel Posen, was created chief of the Amelian treasury, and 
in that character issued notes negotiable upon the faith of 
the government. This experiment for a time supported their 
tottering credit, though it did not meet the ensuing diflaculties. 

"Their financial embarrassments however began to throw 
discredit upon McGregor's party, and the people of the 
neighboring state of Georgia, who supplied the garrison with 
provisions, etc., grew impatient under the factitious mode of 
payment, and at length positively refused to furnish rations 
unless paid for in specie. Private loans were then resorted 
to, and every expedient, however destructive, seized upon to 
support their tottering credit. 

"The Spanish governor of St. Augustine, apprised of every 
movement of the Buccaneers, waited with impatience a naval 
co-operation which had been promised from Havanna, for the 
purpose of destroying these intruders; but the characteristic 
delay of Spanish operations, for a long time baflEled his hopes 
and lessened his confidence in their aid. This gentleman, the 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 91 

son of an Irishman, inheriting the gallantry of his paternal 
ancestry, who had rendered himself, while a subaltern, con- 
spicuous in the Peninsula, tired at length by unavailing 
remonstrances to the Captain General Cienfugas, and feeling 
ashamed that McGregor's trifling force should so long 
profane the province under his command, ordered the small 
detachment of black troops in garrison, and the militia of 
the province, to advance against Amelia Island, supported 
by a few boats with light artillery, through the narrow chan- 
nels which separate the islands of Talbot, Nassau and 
Amelia from the main land. The whole consisting of about 
three hundred, including one hundred and fifty of the militia. 
This force, ample for its object, was confided to the command 
of an officer of the garrison who held the rank of major 
in the royal regiment of Cuba. . . . These forces advanced 
apparently unobserved to within the range of the guns of 
the fort of Fernandina, and were screened by an elevation 
called McClure's hill. It had been preconcerted between the 
naval and military commanders of the expedition that a rocket 
from the former should direct their mutual advance, and the 
troops were anxiously waiting for the signal, when the guns 
of Amelia, and those of the Morgiana Buenos Ayres gun 
brig, and other privateers, opened their fire upon the boats, 
and threw their shot over the hill among the troops; two 
of whom were killed and several wounded. The commander, 
panic struck at this unexpected salutation, instead of advanc- 
ing under cover of the night, and through the obscurity of 
the woods in the rear of the town, where the insurgents had 
made no preparation for resistance, and where he would have 
been out of the range of the fire from the ships, immediately 
sounded a retreat, in spite of the remonstrances and entreaties 
of the officers about him, who were maddened by his pusil- 
lanimity, and who relied with confidence upon the courage and 
devotion of the troops. . . . 

"The situation of McGregor's government had become ex- 
tremely critical, and the want of unanimity among the 
parties threatened with political suicide this ill-arranged 
oligarchy, when the arrival of Commodore Aury, under the 
united flags of the republics of Mexico and Venezuela, in 



92 MY FATHER'S JOUENAL 

the brig *Mexico-libre/ accompanied by several prizes, gave 
a new character to the occupiers of Amelia Island. This 
adventurer had for some time committed depredations upon the 
Spanish trade in the Gulph of Mexico, and when unable to 
meet with prizes of that nation, felt no repugnance at levy- 
ing contributions upon those of other flags; hearing of the 
settlement of McGregor at Amelia, and aware of the superiority 
of the situation as a naval depot, entered with his prizes the 
harbour of Fernandina, amounting to the value of sixty thou- 
sand dollars. This arrival resuscitated the torpid faculties 
of the intruders, and animated their exhausted credit. 

''McGregor sick of the scenes, and fatigued by the vacillat- 
ing character of those around him, determined to withdraw 
from his conquest, proposed an arrangement for that pur- 
pose with Aury, who undertook to pay off the debts of the 
Amelian treasury, amounting to near fifty thousand dollars. 
A Mr. Hubbard, formerly sheriff of New York, an American 
citizen, had divided with McGregor the empire of Amelia, 
holding the office of civil governor, while the latter possessed 
the supreme military command. This latter capacity was 
in consequence of the arrangement, assigned to Commodore 
Aury, who was recognized by the authorities of the Island, 
and landed his followers, the refuse of all nations, and all 
colours, collected from the mass of iniquity spread over the 
islands of the West Indies and the Spanish Americas. 

"McGregor, upon the completion of his agreement with 
Aury, retired to the Bahamas, and many of his followers 
(the most respectable) abandoned the cause of the In- 
surgents." . . . 

The incident is illustrative of the curious laxity of 
morals which results from revolutions, and of the 
irresponsible character of McGregor. 

It was not to be wondered at that the United States 
annexed before the close of 1817 this nest of smugglers 
and pirates, nor that Aury and his valiant followers 
replied to the summons to surrender with many words 
and few shots. Sir Gregor McGregor gave justifica- 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 93 

tion for the act of absorption (if such justification was 
necessary) by the avowal in his proclamation that 
his ultimate project was to conquer the two Floridas. 

Sir Gregor's next venture was an expedition 
against Porto Bello with the double object of seiz- 
ing the town in the interest of the revolutionists and 
capturing a Spanish treasure ship. His partners 
enlisted a crew of ruffians in England, eluded the 
authorities there and in Jamaica, was joined by 
McGregor in the Spanish Main, took Porto Bello, 
just missed the galleon, but found enough liquor in 
the town to get so drunk that the defeated royalists 
dispatched most of them. McGregor himself es- 
caped through the window of his quarters to the 
harbor and swam aboard his ship. He was wrecked 
off Cape Gracios a Dios, on the coast of Honduras, 
and, like the enterprising genius that he was, in- 
gratiated himself with a native chief, whom the 
British had dubbed King of the Mosquito Nation, 
and obtained from him a grant of some 50,000,000 
acres, or 76,000 square miles, to which the King had 
no real title. He agreed to colonize it, and he as- 
sumed the title of Cazique of Poyais. 

Before going to England with his scheme he 
claimed to have inaugurated a settlement, opened a 
bank and organized an army, in which a certain 
Thomas Strangeway, K. G. C, was captain of the 
native Poyais regiment, as well as aide de camp to 
His Highness McGregor. The said Strangeway be- 
came his advertising agent and wrote a Sketch of 
the Mosquito Shore, published by Blackwood, 1822, 
as a bait to lure the public into the net which was 



94 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

being cast for them. The book was a compilation of 
the most glowing descriptions of the agricultural 
possibilities of the West Indies, transferred, without 
acknowledgment, to the swamp lands of the Hondu- 
ras coast. 

McGregor left Honduras in 1821 to transplant an 
English colony to the Mosquito shore. But before 
leaving Honduras he issued a proclamation, dated 
Rio Leco, April 13, 1821, stating that he was sail- 
ing for Europe ''for the purpose of securing religi- 
ous and moral instructors, the implements of hus- 
bandry, and persons to assist in the cultivation of 
the soil.'' He very particularly asserts that ''no 
person but the honest and industrious shall find an 
asylum in the Territory." 

Among the books intended to draw attention to the 
scheme was a publication by Blackwood in the same 
year of an old manuscript by Col. Robert Hodgson, 
written in 1757. It seems that the colonel took pos- 
session of the Mosquito shore in the middle of the 
eighteenth century, as superintendent and agent of 
the Governor of Jamaica, of which colony it was, 
a dependency. He formed settlements on the north 
bank of the Black River and in Bluefields. He does 
not give the number of original settlers, but admits 
that they diminished instead of increasing— "were 
mostly traders with their dependents and lived scat- 
tered." He says there were on the coast 133 white 
men, 16 white women and 5 children, 170 mulattoes 
and mestizos, 92 Indian and negro slaves. 

The colonel was succeeded by his son. It was 
claimed that as the Mosquito Indians had never sub- 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 95 

mitted to Spain their country was unoccupied terri- 
tory. Nevertheless it was recognized as Spanish 
territory by the treaty of 1783 and was vacated by 
the British in 1786. The treaty, however, recog- 
nized the right of England to cut logs between the 
Eiver Waller, or Balize, and the Rio Hondo, and 
from the sea to the New River Lake, ''without dero- 
gating from his Catholic Majesty ^s right of sover- 
eignty/' The limits for log cutting were extended 
in 1786, but without waiver of any rights of sov- 
ereignty by Spain. The Poyais country was included 
in this strip. 

The British interest in Honduras in the eighteenth 
century was created by the growing preference for 
mahogany over walnut in the manufacture of furni- 
ture, which sprung up after 1715 and was stimu- 
lated by the reduction in duties by Walpole, who 
used it in the decoration of his palace at Houghton. 
And the white population of the first settlements in 
Poyais evidently consisted not of agriculturists, but 
of settlers who traded in the wants and vices of the 
mahogany and logwood cutters. (Hal dam Macfall 
in the Connoisseur, 1809, page 190a.) But Mc- 
Gregor's expedition aimed at really subsisting on 
agriculture. 

It was the Duke of Albemarle, when Governor of 
Jamaica, who went through the farce of investing 
one of the Indians with a commission as King of the 
Mosquitos, under the protection of England, by a 
ceremony which was continued long afterwards by 
his successor, as told in my father's Journal. 



96 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

Strangeway's book and statement and the Poyais 
scheme did not go unehallenged. The Quarterly 
Review of October, 1822, administered a scathing 
eastigation to the impudent author with his fictitious 
titles, calling the financial end of it '4oan jobbery'' 
and the land selling **land jobbery," and holding up 
the whole project to derision. The Review exposed 
the palpable confusion which the project offered of 
"interest with principal and prices with commodi- 
ties." Strangeway, under the pseudonym of Veras, 
answered in a pamphlet, admitting the shallowness 
of the McGregor title, explaining that McGregor was 
negotiating with the Spanish Government to secure 
its confirmation, and arguing that the strip of terri- 
tory, with its access through the San Juan River to 
the Lake of Nicaragua, was of such prospective value 
to Great Britain as a canal route that the Govern- 
ment should seriously consider its acquisition. This 
was true, but not to the point! 

Sir Gregor succeeded in raising money in England 
on his shadowy land titles and his false statements. 
One of his dupes was my father, though he would 
not charge McGregor with fraud, but was inclined 
to attribute the terrible failure of the scheme to the 
mismanagement of the company. 

What happened when the unfortunate colonists 
were dumped on the swamp lands at the mouth of 
the Black River is better told by him than by any 
of the survivors, and is a fragment of history worth 
preserving. 

How the unfortunates were rescued and cared for 
in Balize we learn from an official investigation or- 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 97 

dered by Earl Bathurst in 1824. It resulted from a 
petition made to the Secretary of State by W. J. 
Richardson and five other merchant sufferers, who 
claimed that Marshall Bennett and other magis- 
trates at Balize, with the connivance of the superin- 
tendent at Balize, had removed £30,000 of goods and 
stores from Poyais in the previous year in the 
schooner '*The Mexican Eagle,*' and had by force and 
persuasion carried off settlers whom they (the peti- 
tioners) had at great expense conveyed thither. The 
complaint was accompanied by a pamphlet, The Bor- 
lize Merchants Unmasked, by a certain G. A. Low, 
one of McGregor's agents. 

The resulting Proceedings of an Enquiry and In- 
vestigation hy Major General Codd, His Majesty's 
Superintendent and Commander-in-Chief of Balize, 
Honduras, Relative to Poyais, is an interesting docu- 
ment. 

The first witness heard was Marshall Bennett. He 
seems to have been chief justice also of the Balize 
settlement. He testified that in April, 1823, he was 
sent to the Black River with the King's annual 
present and to gather information as to the settle- 
ment. He found disorganization and sickness and 
the settlers anxious that he should remove them. 
Having no authority, he refused. But Lieutenant- 
Governor Hall, arriving on May 6th, gave him the 
requisite authority, and he received on board sixty- 
six individuals, all but three sick with fever. In 
Balize he got permission from His Majesty's super- 
intendent to remove the other settlers, and his 
schooner, ''The Mexican Eagle," was chartered for 



98 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

tlie purpose. It made several trips in rescuing them 
and removing the stores. These were accommodated 
in Bennett's warehouse. Some were used to feed the 
settlers while in Balize and some to supply pro- 
visions to the few who were shipped back to Eng- 
land ; and as the stores were rapidly spoiling the hal- 
lance was sold by public auction and brought 
£943.18.9. 

Thomas Pickstock testified as to the arrival of the 
colonists in Balize in a deplorable condition, and 
that a committee of citizens was appointed to *' su- 
perintend and regulate the charity of public and 
private funds for the relief of the unfortunate peo- 
ple." The committee consisted, among others, of 
Dr. Johnson, assistant staff surgeon, and Lieutenant 
Brown Williams, of the Royal Artillery. They hired 
the following assistance: 

* ' One nurse at 6s 3d and another at 5s, one steward 
at 10s and five assistants at 3s 4d per day; a cook at 
3s 4d and a washerwoman at 10s a week.'' 

The hospital was too small to accommodate the 
sick, so the women and children were removed to a 
large chapel and the remainder quartered on the 
inhabitants. 

On August 1st forty-nine orphans and widows 
were shipped back to England. 

The witness said that the Balize authorities recog- 
nized the difference between the colonists who had 
come out as servants of the company and those who 
had come out as independent settlers. They hesi- 
tated to assist the former class in leaving the Black 
River. 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 99 

Colonel Hall testifies: **In addition to other dis- 
tressing embarrassments Dr. Douglas, the surgeon of 
the settlement, was severely attacked by fever.'* 
He says: **Dr. Douglas declared his intention of 
proceeding with Mr. Bennett next morning to Balize 
unless he received his arrears of pay. His stock of 
medicines he stated was nearly expended. After 
a short interview with him he however consented to 
stay a short time longer. '' Soon after he received 
a written communication from Dr. Douglas, which 
he produced: 
**To Col. Hall: 

**The alarming sickness which prevails to such an 
extent among the settlers recently landed from Eng- 
land requires their immediate removal. 

''I feel myself called on to state my opinion that 
should such removal be delayed, the most fatal con- 
sequences are to be apprehended. The want of shel- 
ter, of fresh provisions, of good water, of clothing 
and the privations we suffer from many other causes, 
preclude any reasonable hope of improvement dur- 
ing our residence here, and under such disadvan- 
tages the approaching wet season may be expected 
to complete our destruction. I myself from severe 
indisposition am at present able to render little or 
no assistance to the sick; the stock of medicines 
brought from England is now nearly expended 
without any prospect of obtaining another supply. 
Under these circumstances I trust you will see the 
necessity of facilitating our immediate removal. 
**I am, etc., 

** James Douglas, Surgeon." 



100 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

These conditions, **the revocation of the Poyais- 
ian grant by the King's proclamation, the disor- 
derly conduct of the greatest part of the settlers,'' 
led to their removal. 

The proclamation of the Poyais King addressed to 
Colonel Hall by his secretary, Vanhes, states that ''in 
consequence of General McGregor not fulfilling his en- 
gagement with His Majesty, His Majesty does con- 
sider General Sir Gregor McGregor sending any per- 
son to this territory to be null and void; but that 
the persons settling there at present have His Maj- 
esty's sanction, as long as they behave as persons 
settling for the benefit of trade, and that they have 
no objection to taking the oath of allegiance to His 
Majesty and to conform to the laws of the kingdom." 

Hall, in a letter to Major of Brigade Henderson, 
states that the number of settlers was about 200. 

The proclamation and this native specimen of 
diplomatic correspondence are worth reproducing: 

**I, George Frederic Augustin the Second, by the 
Grace of God King of the Mosquito Nation, do here- 
by decree the grant of land given to Sir Gregor 
McGregor null and void, he not having fulfilled his 
contract with me agreeable to his stipulation, and 
having contracted a debt on part of my territory 
without my consent, assuming to himself the title 
of Cazique of Poyais, declaring the aforesaid grant 
to be an independent State. 

** Therefore be it known to all these persons pur- 
chasing lands that the aforesaid lands shall be their 
lawful property after being signed by me; that all 
persons holding grants of land will make their claims 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 101 

by the first of January, 1824, as they will be for- 
feited after that date, and all grants of land sold by 
Sir Gregor McGregor since the first of January, 
1823, are declared null and void. 

"Given under my hand at Cape Gracios a Dios 
the 28th day of March in the year of our Lord 1823. 
"George Frederic Augustin, 
''King of the Mosquito Nation/* 
"Col. Hall, Present 

"I, George Frederic Augustin the 2nd, do write 
to decline all further concerns with Sir Gregor Mc- 
Gregor or any of his representatives respecting the 
Poyais Government, as the Mosquito Nation knows 
no such government, as he. Sir Gregor McGregor, 
has not fulfilled his stipulations with me, and any 
application concerning the settlers and merchants 
must be made to the Poyais Government or to the 
Grand Cazique." 
"To Col. Hall: 

"Should Col. Hall wish to have an interview 
with me respecting any private business of his own, 
I am ready to grant it." 
"Sir: 

"I commit this letter, that you will receive from 
bearer to your charge, which you will have the good- 
ness to open in presence of all the settlers at Black 
River, when you arrive there. 

"George Frederic Augustin, etc., etc. 

"Cape Gracios a Dios, April 5th." 

The letter to be read the settlers is as follows: 

"George Frederic Augustin the 2nd, etc. 



102 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

'*My will and pleasure is— I have guaranteed to 
you possession of all the lands you may have pur- 
chased at Black River within my kingdom from 
Gregor McGregor that you may enjoy the same 
property unmolested you have purchased from him 
after the deeds being countersigned by me and prop- 
erly taking the oath of allegiance, which must be 
done by the 1st of January, 1824. 

** Those who have not purchased land may have 
it for 25 cents per acre, payable in 5 years in money, 
goods or service; but the laws must be obeyed and 
customs for any deviation from the same will end in 
their total alienation from the English (to whom 
otherwise they will be respected) with the risk of 
your property and probably your lives. 

*'I will give a constitution to the Kingdom as well 
for the benefit of the subjects as the sovereign 
founded upon justice and free of all persecution." 

No taxes were to be levied for a year. 



Mr. Hall, in writing to the major of brigade in Hon- 
duras, asking permission that Mr. Bennett may re- 
move the more needy of the settlers, says Captain 
Hedgecock, of the Honduras packet, unlawfully ap- 
propriated the greater part of the provisions and 
stores. He asserted that not one-fourth of the stores 
were landed, but that ''Captain Hedgecock detained 
the greater part to satisfy claims against Sir Gregor 
McGregor, as head of the government, and that of 
the Kennersley Castle.'* My father calls the cap- 
tain of the Honduras packet Hitchcock, and at- 
tributes his leaving with most of the provisions to 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 103 

a threatening norther; nevertheless, when Colonel 
Hall went to Cape Gracios a Dios he succeeded in 
persuading Captain Hitchcock to part with medical 
stores only, and he refused to return to the settle- 
ment. He had evidently become persuaded of the 
hopelessness of the venture and uncertainty of being 
paid. 

The date of the Spanish settlement, whose de- 
struction the King described to my father, corre- 
sponds closely with the date of the surrender of the 
coast by Great Britain to Spain, and the buildings 
were probably those of the earlier British settlers. 

There was not a little newspaper criticism of the 
Poyais scheme after its failure. The Scots Maga- 
zine of September, 1823 (page 324), contains an 
article on the credulity of mankind as illustrated by 
the fate of the Poyais emigrants. The writer says: 
**The emigrants had been informed that they would 
find a settlement established. They found three 
miserable huts, inhabited by three or four Ameri- 
cans." He adds that ''McGregor's agent attempted 
to contradict the truth of their accounts, and several 
advertisements were published with the view of 
keeping up the hoax.'' 

Sir Gregor McGregor continued to maintain the 
farce of being the ruler of a principality, for in 
1836 he composed a constitution, which he dedicated 
"To the Inhabitants of Poyaisia and other districts 
of the Territory of the Mosquito Shore." In it he 
styles himself their "sincere friend and fellow citi- 
zen." It commences: "We, the representatives of 
the Freemen of the Mosquito Territory, in General 



104 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

Convocation met, resolve that tlie Territory shall 
henceforth be called Indialand." It is prefaced by 
the same propositions as to the inherent right of 
man which are introduced in the United States Con- 
stitution. It, however, declares that *' slavery is for- 
ever abolished in this state." 

The supreme legislative power is vested in an as- 
sembly of the representatives of the people; the ex- 
ecutive in a Governor and Council, and the judicial 
in a senate, a supreme court and inferior courts. It 
was evidently assumed to be an independent repub- 
lic, as no mention is made of Great Britain. 

His Highness was, however, getting into very deep 
water, for in 1839 he addressed a petition to the 
Venezuelan Government and pleaded that in consider- 
ation of his past services to the Republic it should 
extend to him pecuniary assistance, confer on him cit- 
izenship and restore his rank in the army ; all of which 
requests were granted. 

My father's account of the short-lived colony, 
which I reproduce intact, was written from a diary, 
evidently revised after the events, probably when 
he was in the United States. It varies in some minor 
particulars from the evidence elicited during the 
official inquiry. The prospectus by which my father 
and others were tempted to join the expedition is 
not more extravagant than other similar mendacious 
documents of our own day. 

The Journal was published in the Transactions of 
the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, Ses- 
sion of 1868- '9. 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 105 

Paper I.— ACCOUNT OF THE ATTEMPT TO FORM A 

SETTLEMENT ON THE MOSQUITO SHORE, IN 1823. 

By JAMES DOUGLAS, M. D. 

{Read before the Society, February lOth, 1869.) 

On ray return from India, in the fall of 1822, I received an 
appointment as Assistant Surgeon in the Bengal Presidency. 
While in London, awaiting the departure of a vessel for 
Calcutta, I filled up my spare time by attending the Practice 
and Lectures of Sir Astley Cooper, in Guy and St. Thomas* 
Hospitals. One day, while awaiting the opening of the 
lecture room, and amusing myself by reading on the walls of 
the hall the notices of boarding-houses, fencing and drawing 
masters, &c., I was attracted by an open letter addressed to 
Sir Astley Cooper by the Secretary to the Government of 
Poyais, requesting him to recommend a well-qualified surgeon 
to accompany a party of settlers to the Mosquito Shore. 

I at once proceeded to the Office of the Government, No. 1, 
Dowgate Hill, where I found three or four portly-looking 
gentlemen, directors, to whom I introduced myself. Finding 
that I had just come from India and was about to return with 
a permanent appointment, I received a hearty welcome; and 
after some discussion and hesitation on my part, I agreed to 
give up India and proceed to the Mosquito Shore. My 
engagement comprised a salary of £1 per diem, a furnished 
house, servant, horse, medicines, &c. 

A great difl'erence of opinion existed, and still exists, as to 
the objects, the end, aim and management of the Poyais 
scheme. As far as I could learn at the time, and have since 
learnt, the conduct of the directors was perfectly in good 
faith, and their objects perfectly legitimate. They signally 
failed from ignorance and from causes which will be readily 
recognized as I proceed. I may, however, now explain the 
origin and objects of an expedition which involved so serious 
a sacrifice of property, and so fearful a loss of life. The 
Spanish provinces at this time had declared their inde- 
pendence, and were at war with old Spain. Bolivar and 
Sir Gregor MacGregor had failed in an attack on Carthagena, 
and had escaped with great difficulty, Sir Gregor having 



106 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

succeeded in reaching Cape Gracios a Dios, where he re- 
mained some time with George Frederick, the King of the 
Mosquito nation. At this time, the Mosquito Shore was 
under the protection of Great Britain; and the King had 
been brought up, educated and crowned in Jamaica, under 
the care of the Duke of Manchester, the Governor of the 
British West India Islands. While at Cape Gracios a Dios, 
Sir Gregor obtained from the Mosquito King a grant of land 
on the coast, for purposes of settlement; but being without 
money or influence, he sold his rights to some merchants in 
London for £16,000. They organized a company for the 
purpose of settling the land, but principally, as I was in- 
formed, for the purpose of supplying British dry goods to 
the revolted provinces. 

However, after my agreement with the Directors, and lay- 
ing in the requisite medical stores, &c., I embarked at Grave- 
send, on 22nd November, in a vessel called the "Honduras 
Packet," Hitchcock, master. I found my fellow-passengers 
in the cabin to be composed of Col. Hall, the commandant, 
who was about 60 years of age, and had been most of his 
life in India; Mr. Westcott, secretary; Mr. Googer, com- 
missary; and myself, surgeon. In the fore-cabin were 27 
young men, some of them holding situations, and some going 
out as settlers. Three of the latter were married. In the 
steerage were 46 men and women, and a very few children. 
The captain and owner of the vessel was an old master in the 
navy — a lying, blustering, but on the whole a good-natured 
man. After an average passage, we arrived at St. Thomas, 
where we remained 14 days. I was delighted with St. 
Thomas. The inhabitants, principally Danes and French, 
were extremely pleasant and hospitable. Slavery existed, 
but apparently only in name; the negroes on the plantations 
seemed to be a most happy and jolly race, apparently always 
on the grin. 

On 21st January, anchored in Port Royal, Jamaica, where 
we found four ships of war under command of Admiral 
Rowley, and three piratical vessels, which had been lately 
captured. I spent a fortnight very pleasantly in Kingston, 
where I met some old school-fellows, who did all in their 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 107 

power to dissuade me from going on the Spanish main. They 
represented in vain, but as I afterwards found out, very 
truly, the unhealthiness of the climate, the want of the 
ordinary necessaries of life, the dangerous character of the 
natives, and the difficulty of getting away again, should I 
desire to do so. During my stay in Jamaica, I attended the 
trial of a band of pirates before the Admiralty Court. I could 
not recognize the magnificent specimen of a leader so graphical- 
ly described by Tom Cringle in his famous log. Whether I 
was prejudiced by the idea I entertained of their profession, 
and the stories current of their wanton cruelties, I know 
not: I thought them the most savage, blood-thirsty, re- 
pulsive-looking wretches I had ever seen. They were of all 
colors, North and South Americans, British, Negroes and 
Mulattoes. When passing Port Royal Point on my departure, 
I saw twenty-one of the gang hanging in chains. 

In February, 1823, we arrived on the Mosquito Shore, and 
about noon anchored off the mouth of the Black River. A 
number of the natives, accompanied by a half-caste American, 
came off to us in a large canoe, called a dory. They 
obstinately resisted Col. Hall's wish to go on shore with 
them. During the discussion, one of the natives called to the 
party in the cabin, who immediately rose and proceeded to 
leave the ship, in spite of our entreaties to them to remain: 
the leader remarked that it was getting late in the day, that 
the Bar at the mouth of the River must be crossed before 
dark, &c., &c., go he would, and go he did, in what seemed 
to us to be in unnecessary haste. About half an hour after 
the departure of the party, the water being calm, I was fishing 
over the stern of the vessel, when a cat's-paw crept over the 
water. In a few minutes it increased to a hurricane. The 
iron cable snapped, and before sail could be got on the ship, 
I could count the stones on the beach. The hurricane con- 
tinued all night, which was very dark, and although cold 
and wet, every one remained on deck, listening to the surf 
beating on the shore, and expecting every moment the vessel 
to strike. At day-light we found ourselves about half a mile 
from the shore: the sky was clear, but the hurricane still 
continued. At 3 p.m., the ship had got more of an ofluig, 



108 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

and we then bore away for the Island of Bonacca, which we 
reached next day in the afternoon. 

The Harbour of Bonacca is landlocked by seven rocky 
islands, or keys, as they are called. These islets are covered 
with cocoa-nut trees. Bonacca Island itself is about four or 
five miles in diameter, but without any inhabitants. We 
found numbers of wild pigs and coneys, and abundance of 
wild fowl. We remained on the Island ten days, ostensibly, 
until the damage to the sails and rigging was repaired. 
During this time, several of the passengers were laid up with 
sore feet, from the deposit of the eggs of the chigoe under the 
skin, in consequence of going without shoes or stockings. 

On again reaching the roadstead off the mouth of the Black 
Biver, the half-caste American and the natives shewed, or 
pretended to shew great surprise at seeing us, supposing we 
had been driven on shore, or had foundered in the hurricane. 
We reproached them for not warning us of its approach, and 
for evidently wishing the loss of the vessel and of all on board. 
Being late in the afternoon, we deferred going on shore until 
the next day. 

The next morning, accordingly, we disembarked in large 
canoes. We found a tremendous surf on the bar which ran 
across the mouth of the river, about half a mile from the 
shore. We, however, were all landed safely, with the excep- 
tion of a few of the men who remained to assist in getting 
out the cargo. We looked in vain for the church and the 
houses which we had been led to believe existed. The un- 
broken forest reached down to the water's edge. The tents 
having been left on board, we were fain to make fires of the 
drift-wood and sleep on the beach. 

Next morning, guided by the Indians, we selected a site for 
the settlement on the bank of a lagoon, about two miles from 
the mouth of the Black River, or Rio Tinto of the Spaniards; 
and as there was not a clear space sufl&cient to enable us to 
pitch tents, all hands were soon busy in removing the trees 
and brushwood. We succeeded in clearing a patch, and 
the next day got eight tents on shore and the most of the 
private baggage. Many of the people finding the tents too 
hot and oppressive under a tropical sun, erected wigwams, 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 109 

covered with spare sheets, blankets and leafy branches of 
trees. 

On the following day, while still busy clearing the banks 
of the lagoon, we were visited by a party of Caribs, the re- 
mains of the aborigines of the W. I. Islands. These people 
at the beginning of the century were confined to the Island of 
St. Vincent, and being irreclaimable and very troublesome, 
were finally captured by the British government, and landed 
on the main land, south of Truxillo, and just beyond the 
borders of the Mosquito Kingdom. I found them a fine manly 
race with the peculiar artificial form of skull, and in intellect 
and disposition, much superior to the Mosquito men. I en- 
gaged a band of five of them to build me a house, which they 
did remarkably well, and in a remarkably short space of time. 
They sunk corner posts of the pitch pine, leaving about 
twelve feet over the ground, and smaller posts for doors, 
windows and cross ties; the whole was then walled in with 
wild sugar cane, and thickly thatched with the leaves of the 
palm tree. The doors and windows were of cane, and were 
swung from the lintels. My Carib friends and I maintained 
a very good understanding during my stay on the coast. They 
supplied me with game, fish, and fruit, in return for bleeding 
them, an operation of which they were very fond, and were 
never tired. However, to return to our daily routine. On 
the 4th day, got two puncheons of rum on shore, and several 
casks of pork, beef, and flour. 

The next forenoon I was alarmed by seeing the ship in the 
ofiing set sail, and steer to the southward, taking away our 
arms, spirits, merchandise, medicines, and five of the settlers. 
Capt. Hitchcock sent word by the Indians who were employed 
in discharging and landing the cargo, that fearing another 
Norther, he would stay no longer, and would not return; but 
would land the remainder of the goods at Cape Gracios a 
Dios. This was a terrible blow and great discouragement, 
but a few hours convinced us of the wisdom and necessity 
of Capt. Hitchcock's decision, as during the latter part of the 
same day the Norther did set in, and blew with such violence 
as to level the huts, and carry away the tents. My cane 
house not being finished, my own tent, though well pegged 



110 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

down, was blown away, and in the night I was left exposed 
to the storm, and to such a deluge of rain as is only ex- 
perienced in the tropics. The next morning, the condition of 
the people was piteous in the extreme, and more easily to be 
imagined than described. The weather, however, though still 
windy, was fine. The Indians kept us liberally supplied with 
peccary, venison, fish and fruit, in exchange for rum, powder, 
and shot. In the afternoon I took possession of my house 
and felt prouder than under other circumstances to have 
owned the best house in Finsbury Square. I bought a small 
canoe of mahogany wood, which I could easily paddle by 
myself, and what with improving my house, shooting, fishing, 
reading, and my slight professional duties, I passed my time 
most pleasantly for several weeks. This, however, was not 
destined to last longer; in March the rum was expended, and 
from some cause unknown, the Indians disappeared. About 
the same time several cases of bilious remittent fever occurred. 
I had nothing but my lancets and a phial of emetic tartar. I 
could say like the lines of the celebrated Dr. John Lettsom: 

*'When patients sick to me apply, 
I physics, bleeds, and sweats them; 
If, after that, they choose to die. 
What's that to me? — I. Lettsom. '^ 

However, at this period none of my patients died; the 
bilious remittent changing into an obstinate intermittent. 

At the end of March, had ten cases of fever, of more than 
the ordinary intensity. To add to our distress, the supply of 
tea, sugar, biscuit, flour, and spirits, was exhausted; nothing 
but salt beef and the uncertain and irregular supply of fish 
and game. At this time, some Indians came from Cape 
Gracios a Dios, and told us that a large ship was laying 
there, with plenty of rum. Knowing it to be the Honduras 
Packet, Col. Hall immediately set off in a dory with two of 
the settlers and eleven Indians. 

Three days afterwards, a large ship anchored off the Bar; 
she proved to be the Kennesly Castle from Leith, with 160 
settlers. During the few following days, they were all safely 
landed with their luggage; the vessel, however, brought no 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 111 

provisions for the colony; all that was obtained were the 
surplus stores, laid in for passengers on the voyage. A gentle- 
man named Smith, was attached to the Kennesly Castle as 
surgeon. With the ship the natives reappeared, and assisted in 
landing the passengers and their goods; for some unexplained 
reason or cause, they would not, however, hunt or fish for us. 

On the 11th April, my earthly career nearly closed. Being 
desirous to go on board the ship in the oflBng, I started in a 
dory with Dr. Smith and three men to paddle; on reaching 
the surf we found five rows of breakers, and passed two with- 
out difficulty; a panic then seized the men, who ceased to 
paddle, and insisted on returning. The result was that the 
dory lost way, and the next breaker left us struggling in the 
water. We were about half a mile from shore. Two of the 
men were good swimmers; Dr. Smith, however, got hold of 
one of them, and was only induced to relinquish his hold by 
blows of a paddle from the other. I then succeeded in getting 
Dr. Smith within reach of the dory, and instructed him how 
to hold on to its extreme end. A party of Indians on the 
Point, seeing our mishap, launched their canoe, and picked 
up the two swimmers, nearly exhausted. After landing them, 
they returned to our assistance, and taking off Dr. Smith and 
the third man, they paddled out of the surf, where leaving 
one Indian to take them on shore, the other two came to my 
assistance. They first righted the dory and then cleared it 
of the water by see-sawing it until the most of the water was 
splashed out. They then got it out of the surf, leaving me 
still holding on to the stem until in smooth water. The two 
men first picked up, were little the worse; Dr. Smith was 
very ill for a couple of days; the third man never rallied, and 
died in about three hours. On the 15th, the Kennesly Castle 
sailed, the sickness on shore increased, a great deal of rain 
fell, and as the people were not sheltered from it, they suffered 
greatly. The atmosphere became thick, sultry and oppressive; 
the type of the fever changed, and on this day one young man 
died. The few medicines I had procured from the Kennesly 
Castle were soon exhausted. 

25th. — Of 220 individuals all were sick, with the exception 
of nine. One family of seven persons — father, mother, and 



112 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

five sons — ^were all ill: they lay on the ground on cane 
leaves. On visiting them this evening, found the mother had 
been dead some hours, without the knowledge of the others. 

26th. — To-day, three of the men, while crossing the lagoon 
in front of my house, in a pitpan, upset. One of the party, a 
good swimmer, struck out for the shore: he had only pro- 
ceeded a few yards when he shrieked out and suddenly sank. 
He had evidently been seized by one of the alligators, which 
were numerous in the lagoons. Alligator was shot the next 
day. 

27th. — ^To-day, a highly respectable and very worthy man 
committed suicide. He had been ill, but was recovering, 
though still unable to rise. He insisted that he was going to 
die, and wished me to take charge of his little property, and 
of a letter to his wife. Last evening I had given him a 
little wine; this morning, when on my way to visit him, I 
heard a shot fired, and on entering his hut, found that he 
had loaded a horse-pistol to the muzzle, and had literally 
blown himself to pieces. Not being able to get any one to 
dig a grave, I collected some brushwood, which I piled in his 
hut, and set fire to it. To-day, five men and a woman took a 
large dory, got safely through the surf, and oflF to the north- 
ward. 

28th. — The two young men who had been upset with me in 
the surf, and another, left the settlement with some Indians 
who were going to Balize. 

May 1st. — ^Another man died. To-day, Col. Hall returned, 
bringing some of the medical and other stores with him. He 
had found the Honduras Packet at the Cape, but could not 
induce the master to return to the Settlement. He announced 
an intended visit of the King. 

6th. — Every one sick and helpless, excepting Colonel Hall, 
myself, and a rascal named McGregor. Colonel Hall and 
myself took some of the sick into our houses, and attended 
them as well as we were able. 

7th. — To-day, George Frederick, the King of the Mosquito 
Nation, arrived, accompanied by several of his Chiefs, or 
Ministers. His arrival was a perfect God-send to us, as he 
caused his people to hunt and fish for us. He was a tall and 



IN CHARGE OP POYAIS SETTLEMENT 113 

handsome-looking man, but a most debauched character. He 
drank excessively, swore a good deal, and was excessively 
fond of playing at "all-fours." He spoke and read English 
remarkably well. One of his staff, a hale old man, had been 
in Jamaica with the King, during his minority, and until his 
coronation. He was very communicative, and gave me a 
good deal of information on the history of the Mosquito 
Shore. I will never forget the diabolical glee with which he 
gave me an account of the final destruction of the Spanish 
settlement, upwards of thirty years before, and in which he 
had t^ken a part. He said that on a dark night the Indiana 
had surrounded the entire place, and, while the inhabitants 
were asleep, had set fire to the buildings, and massacred every 
soul — men, women and children. Not one escaped. He told 
me that my hut was erected on the site of the hospital: this 
accounted for my having found some square tiles and a lot 
of broken glass, when levelling my floors. He pointed out the 
site of the chapel, or church, and took me to see the house 
of the Governor. We cut our way through the brush with 
our machetes, and found the remains of what had been a 
good stone house. Most of the first story, if it ever had 
more than one, was still standing, but closely embraced by 
the trees, shrubs, and creeping plants, with which it was 
almost quite hidden. Upon the whole, I was pleased with 
what I had seen, which satisfied me that the frontispiece 
to Colonel Strangeway's book was not purely mythical: it 
shewed some good-looking buildings surrounding a church 
with a respectable steeple. I suspect the veracious Colonel 
had taken his view from some old Spanish print. 

15th. — The King and his court departed rather suddenly, 
and in great or pretended wrath. He had demanded from 
Col. Hall that he and the whole of the people should take the 
oath of allegiance to him. To this demand Col. Hall would 
not listen for an instant; angry words ensued, which ended 
in His Majesty and his following getting into their canoes 
and starting back to the Cape, with scanty leave taking. 

The principal, if not the only cause of regret for the King's 
departure, was in the circumstance that he took all the 



114 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

Indians away with him, and in consequence deprived us of 
our necessary supplies of game, fish and fruit. 

20th. — ^A small schooner from Balize in the Bay of 
Honduras, anchored this morning off the mouth of the river, 
the owner, Mr. Bennett, having heard through the English 
papers of our settlement. Although bound for Carthagena, 
Mr. Bennett most generously offered to convey as many of 
the worst cases among the sick, as his vessel would hold, to 
Balize; this most generous offer was thankfully accepted, and 
the next day the schooner departed with 57 persons. 

On their departure I felt a peculiar depression of spirits. I 
called to discuss our state and prospects with Col. Hall, and 
while conversing with him, became suddenly seized with 
acute pain in my head and giddiness. I hardly know how 
I reached my hut. I recovered with a vague and dreamy 
idea of having bled myself, and of having neglected or been 
unable to bandage up my arm after the operation. In five or 
six days I regained my full consciousness, and was able to 
sit up in bed, but an obstinate intermittent set in, which 
reduced me to a skeleton. This, and the weakness caused 
by the excessive loss of blood, rendered me unable to get out. 
During the intermissions, I was only able to sit at the window 
and shoot parrots, lizards, or anything eatable or uneatable, 
which came within shot, to sustain life in myself and in an 
Irish woman, one of the individuals whom I had taken in and 
nursed some time before. To this poor and faithful woman I 
owe much, as she devoted herself to my care, although she her- 
self was weak, and still suffering from ague. In June, H. 
Majesty's sloop of war Redwing came to an anchor in the 
Roads. She had been despatched to our assistance by Gen. 
Codd, the superintendent at Balize. From the time of my 
attack, I do not remember any occurrence distinctly. I have 
a dim and dreamy remembrance of being carried to the 
beach in a hammock by the sailors, and of lying on the deck 
of the Redwing until her arrival in Balize. I am aware that 
she took off all the settlers, excepting two or three who were 
well enough to remain and take charge of what was left of 
the property at the settlement. On my arrival in Balize 1 
was placed in lodgings with a very kind negress. During my 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 115 

stay I recovered some strength, so that occasionally only, I 
was enabled to crawl out. My mind also somewhat re- 
covered its tone. The ague, however, was most persistent. 
I was as thin as a whipping post, and as yellow as a guinea. 
While I remained in Balize, one of the three young men who 
had left the Black River with some Indians in April, made 
his appearance in Balize. He stated that on the passage he 
and his two companions were seized by the Indians and 
thrown overboard about a mile and a half from the shore; 
one sank immediately, the second swam a considerable dis- 
tance before sinking, the survivor got on shore and reached 
Omoa, and was forwarded to Balize. As the Mosquito men 
were still in Balize, they were arrested, and I was carried to 
court to identify them. As no court having criminal juris- 
diction existed in Balize, the accuser and the accused were 
sent in a vessel of war to Jamaica for trial. 

Before my arrival in Balize, some of the party of six who 
had left the settlement on 27th April were brought to Balize. 
When at the entrance of the Bay of Honduras, they had 
staved their dory at night on a small rocky key. They saved 
some salt beef, but had no water; after lingering for several 
days, two died from thirst. They were then picked up by a 
Spanish turtling boat, where two more of them died. The 
woman was the only one who suffered little. 

In September, I became so ill and weak as to be unable to 
rise. My recollections of what passed for some weeks were 
so faint, that on my recovery I could with difficulty recall any 
occurrences. I have a dim idea of a gentleman visiting and 
praying with me. I have a dim recollection of him offering 
me a passage to Boston, and some time after, of his heading 
a procession of sailors who carried me on board of a schooner 
in a hammock slung on an oar. The schooner touched and 
remained some days in Havannah, waiting for the convoy 
of men-of-war, as at that time the West India seas were 
greatly infested by pirates; but I was too ill and weak to be 
moved out of my berth. 

On my arrival in Boston I was sent on shore and placed in 
Quarantine. The next day, however, or the day after that, 



116 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

on a formal consultation I was discharged and sent up to 
the city. 



I append herewith a copy of the printed circular issued by 
the Company: 

Regulations of tlie Poyais Land Office, No. 1, 
Dowgate-Hill, London. 

I. — The lands are sold in Square Miles, or Sections of 
640 Acres; Half-Sections of 320 Acres; Quarter-Sections of 
160 Acres; in Eighths of 80 Acres; and Sixteenths of 40 
Acres. 

II. — The Proprietors of Land in this Territory, pay a 
Feu-Duty of One Cent, of a Dollar per Acre. One Hundred 
Cents, make a Dollar, which is equal to about 4s. 6d. Sterling; 
the Feu-Duty, therefore, does not amount to more than about a 
Halfpenny per Acre; and the payment thereof is not to 
commence until five years after the date of the purchase. 
The Grants are transferable, without expense, by simple in- 
dorsation, in presence of two Witnesses; and it is specially 
stipulated, that, with the exception of the foresaid Feu-Duty, 
the Purchaser shall be free from all and every Impost or 
Taxation whatsoever, unless such as shall be voluntarily and 
freely agreed to by the Grantees, their Heirs, or Assigns, for 
the benefit of the State. 

III. — The Price of these Lands is at present Three Shillings 
per Acre, and on the 15th of November will be advanced to 
Four Shillings, and a further advance will take place soon 
thereafter. As it is only intended to sell a particular quantity 
of Land at these low prices, should that quantity be sold 
previous to a certain period, the Price of the Lands will be 
considerably advanced. It may also be observed, that, should 
certain circumstances take place, which are in a state of 
progress, a much greater advance than here noticed will 
probably be the consequence. 

IV. — Purchasers may secure to themselves Grants at the 
Price of the Day, by paying a Deposit of 25 per Cent, pre- 
vious to the next Advance, and the Remainder of the Pur- 
chase-Money within such time after the date of the Deposit 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 117 

as may be agreed upon, by which they will be entitled to 
receive their Grants, even though the Price in the meantime 
may have advanced. Those Purchasers, however, who fail 
to pay up the Balance at the stipulated time, may, upon ap- 
plication, receive a Grant of Land equal in value to tho 
amount of their Deposit, provided the application be made 
within the term of Six Months from the date of the said 
Deposit: but if, at the expiration of this last term, no ap- 
plication should be made, the Deposit will then be considered 
forfeited. The TITLE-DEEDS may be seen, and every in- 
formation obtained, by applying personally, or by Letter, 
(post paid) addressed to the Agent of the Poyais Land Office, 
No. 1, Doivgate-Hill, London. 

The TERRITORY of POYAIS, which forms vnthin itself 
a free and independent State, under the government of its 
own Cazique, is situated on the mountainous side of the 
Bay of Honduras, in North America; is three or four days' 
sail from Jamaica; thirty hours' from the British Settle- 
ment of Balize in Yucatan; and about eight days' from New 
Orleans, in the United States of America. — The CLIMATE 
is remarkably healthy, and agrees admirably with the con- 
stitution of Europeans; many of whom having become much 
debilitated by a long residence in the West Indies, have been 
completely restored to health by a removal for a short period 
to the Bay of Honduras. — The SOIL is extremely rich and 
fertile, bearing Three Crops of Indian Corn in a Year; and 
produces not only all the necessaries of life in profusion, but 
is also well adapted for the cultivation of all those valuable 
Commercial Commodities which have rendered the West Indies 
so important; — such as Sugar, Coffee, Cotton, Tobacco, Cocoa, 
&c. &c. — The Face of the Country is beautifully varied by 
Hill and Valley, and likewise abounds with fine Savannahs 
or Plains, and in Forests of the most valuable TIMBER, such 
as Mahogany, Cedar, Santa Maria Wood, Rose- Wood, Zebra- 
Wood, Pitch-Pine, and many others useful for every purpose 
of Husbandry, erection of Houses, Shipbuilding, Cabinet 
Ware, &c. — and the West-India Markets always present a 
ready and profitable sale for all sorts of Lumber as well as 
Provisions. — Tar, Pitch, Turpentine, and Ashes, can be pro- 



118 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

duced in abundance. — Dye Woods are found in great plenty, 
such as Fustic, Yellow Sanders, Nicaragua Wood, &c. — Indigo 
is indigenous, and can also be cultivated to great advantage. — 
A variety of Gums, Medicinal Plants, and Drugs, are plenti- 
fully dispersed all over the Country. — ^Horses and black Cattle 
are abundant, as also Deer, wild Hogs, Poultry, &c. &c. — 
The Rivers are numerous, and there is abundance of Streams 
of Water; several of the former are navigable for a consider- 
able way into the interior of the Country, and many of them 
produce, by waf3hing the Sand in fine Sieves, native Globules 
of pure Gold. Many Gold Mines, and those very rich, are 
found in the Country, which might, with proper management, 
be wrought to great benefit. — ^A great variety of excellent Fish 
is to be met with in all the Rivers, Lagoons, and on the 
Shores: Turtle is very abundant, especially the species de- 
nominated Hawksbill, which is particularly desirable on ac- 
count of its Shell, so much prized in Europe, under the name 
of Tortoise-shell. — Fruits of every description are likewise in 
great plenty. 

This Territory adjoins the Spanish American Province of 
Honduras and Niacaragua, from which, however, it is sep- 
arated by a chain of almost inaccessible Mountains. The 
Spaniards, in former times, made several unsuccessful at- 
tempts to subdue the native Indians; but since their last 
defeat, which happened about thirty years ago, they have 
never shewn any disposition to molest them. This Country 
is indeed so completely defended by nature, that any hostile 
attempts against it are impracticable. The native Inhabitants 
are a brave and independent Race, who esteem and are affec- 
tionately attached to the British. Most of them speak Eng- 
lish, are considerably advanced in civilization, and their 
Labour can be had on very moderate terms. 

An intelligent Gentleman, who was many years senior Naval 
Officer in the Bay of Honduras, &c. asserts, (and his asser- 
tion is confirmed by every person who is acquainted with, or 
who has written on the subject) "That this Country, taking 
it in all points of view, surpasses not only every part of 
the West Indies, but that, on account of the richness of 
the Soil, the luxuriance of the Woods, the great salubrity 



IN CHARGE OF POYAIS SETTLEMENT 119 

of the Air, the remarkable excellence of its Waters and 
Provisions, with its almost unrivalled Harbours for Shipping 
with which the Shore abounds, is excelled by no Country 
under the influence of British Dominion." 
Ist November, 1822. 



CHAPTER V 

MY father's active PROFESSIONAL LIFE 

His autobiographical notes, which I copy, describe 
his short residence in the United States and his com- 
pulsory and hasty transfer to Canada: 

**0n the arrival of the schooner in Boston I was 
sent on shore, and placed in Quarantine. The next 
day however, or a day or two after that, I was dis- 
charged, and sent up to the City. 

**I was removed to a very comfortable boarding- 
house, kept by Mrs. Wilson. I lay there for many 
weeks, most of the time in a semi-conscious condi- 
tion. I was most kindly attended by Dr. Warren, to 
whom, I am convinced, that under Providence, I 
owe my life. I regret exceedingly, that I never had 
an opportunity of acknowledging my sense of his 
skill and of his kindness to me. On my partial recovery 
being still extremely emaciated, very weak, and un- 
able to find a passage to England, I embarked in a 
schooner for New York. I found on board as fel- 
low passengers, an Irish gentleman, with his lady and 
niece. They dissuaded me from my purpose of sail- 
ing from New York, on the plea that it would be a 
pity to do so, without seeing something more of the 



122 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

United States. As I was too weak to travel, except- 
ing by water, I went with them in a long masted 
schooner, to Albany, from Albany, I took passage by 
the Erie Canal to Buffalo, intending to descend the 
river to Quebec. On arrival at Utica, finding that the 
banks of the Canal had given way at a village called 
Amsterdam, my companions took the stage, and I, 
being too weak to bear land carriage, was compelled 
to remain in Utica, until the damage to the Canal 
was made good. I took up my abode in Amos Gay^s 
hotel, where I impatiently awaited the completion 
of the repairs to the Canal. I was rapidly gaining 
strength, and was able to walk about, having got rid 
of my ague, which had persecuted me daily for 
seven months, and had reduced me to a yellow skele- 
ton. In the meanwhile, winter had made its appear- 
ance, and the Caaal would be closed with ice. I was 
seriously meditating a return to New York by the 
Canal, when an accident occurred which was the 
means of altering entirely my future life and career. 
One afternoon, a respectable farmer, whom I had 
occasionally met at the hotel table, came to me with 
a request, that I should visit a man who had been 
run through by the handle of a pitch-fork. He took 
me in his waggon to a village called Paris, where I 
found the patient, a well to do farmer, surrounded 
by a couple of medical men, and several sympathising 
friends. He told me, that while throwing down hay 
from a shelf in his barn, his feet had slipped, and he 
had fallen to the lower floor with the pitch-fork, the 
handle of which, had run him through the body. On 
examination, I found the wound was in the groin, and 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 123 

that portions of his shirt and trowsers had been car- 
ried into the abdomen, and had remained there. The 
bladder and intestines seemed to have escaped injury. 
As he was a tall powerful man, of spare habit of body, 
and extremely temperate, I thought that if the plug 
of clothes could be extracted, he might recover from 
the effects of the injury. On turning him over, I 
felt a hardness over the crest of the opposite ilium, 
I cut down upon it, until a puff of air, shewed me 
that I had entered the cavity of the abdomen; I 
found the plug of clothes, and extracted it. The pa- 
tient recovered, without any untoward symptom. I 
awoke the next morning, and found myself famous, 
Surgical practice poured in on me, and determined me 
to remain in Utica until the Spring, and then to be 
guided by circumstances. Circumstances did guide 
me. I became attached to a most amiable and talented 
young lady. I abandoned the idea of India, I built 
me a house, I married, I sent to England for my 
young brother George, and settled down to practise, 
with the intention of spending my life in Utica. 

**My first patient was a wealthy farmer, he was 
extremely grateful, he gave me fifty dollars, and sub- 
sequently made me the present of a horse. The 
Western part of the State being then newly settled, 
and the population much scattered, my practice, which 
was principally surgical, took me sometimes long dis- 
tances. My health however, steadily improved, and I 
was extremely happy in my domestic relations. 

''In the Autumn of 1824, I was invited by the 
faculty of the Medical College at Auburn, to deliver 
a course of lectures on Anatomy and Surgery, the 



124 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

gentleman from Boston, who had previously filled 
the chair, being ill. The State's prison for New 
York, was at Auburn, and as the law gave for dissec- 
tion, the bodies of all prisoners dying in the Institu- 
tion, there was no lack of the raw material. The 
offer made to me for my course of lectures and demon- 
strations, were liberal, and I was engaged to repeat it 
on the following session." 

I have found the following documents bearing on 
his connection with the Auburn Medical School and 
his reception of the degree of Doctor of Medicine from 
the Berkshire Medical Institution after his departure 
from Utica: 

'^AUBURN MEDICAL SCHOOL. 

''THE attention of the Medical Faculty and com- 
munity generally, who are friendly to the establish- 
ment of a Medical School at Auburn, is solicited in 
favour of the present efforts to prepare the way for 
a permanent institution. 

''The course of Lectures for this year will com- 
mence on the first day of March, next. 

"On Anatomy and Operations in Surgery by 
JAMES DOUGLASS, M. D. 

"On Obstetricks by Dr. I. H. SMITH. 

"On Theory and practice of Medicine by Dr. E. 
D. TUTTLE. 

"On Chymistry and Natural Philosophy by JE- 
DEDIAH SMITH, M. D. 

"The object is to commence a Medical Institution. 
Though the courses will be as full and complete as 
at the Colleges, the fee required will only be such as 
to defray the actual expenses. 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 125 

** Those gentlemen who intend to favour our views 
and receive the benefits of the course of Anatomical 
Demonstrations, will be pleased to forward their 
names to Dr. Tuttle, or Dr. I. H. Smith, on or before 
the 15th of February next. 

** Auburn, January 15th, 1825. 



''The inhabitants of the ViUage of Auburn, rec- 
ommend to the attention and patronage of the pub- 
lic the object and undertaking above proposed, be- 
lieving that from the characters of the medical gen- 
tlemen engaged in it, it wiU be rendered highly im- 
portant and useful in promoting the science and art 
on which they propose to lecture. Dr. Douglass it 
appears from his credentials is a graduate of the 
University of Edinburgh, and we are also satisfied 
from them, that he has enjoyed extensive and valu- 
able means of perfecting himself in his profession 
which the Cities of Edinburgh and London afford. 
We are of opinion that the part assigned to him will 
be ably, usefully and scientifically performed. The 
three other gentlemen are known to us and we have 
no hesitation in recommending them to the public 
as entirely competent to perform their several parts 
in a manner which will give satisfaction to students 
and be honourable to themselves. 

"Geo. B. Throop, E. Miller, 
''Wm. H. Seward, G. Powers, 
**E. HosKms, D. C. Lansing, 

**E. D. Throop, R. L. Smith, 
*'M. C. Reed, M. L. R. Perrine.'' 



126 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

(Written on Reverse af Printed Announcement) 
"Anbum, Jan. 25th, 1825. 
*'Dear Sir:— 

*'You see on this paper what Dr. Tnttle and others 
intend accomplishing. I came to this place from 
Ithaca a few days ago to give a course of chemical 
and philosophical experiments and I expected you 
would be here at the same time. My class of medical 
students and citizens are desirous that I should com- 
mence, but I wish to delay until you arrive. I wish 
that you would let me know if there is any doubt 
respecting your course beginning on the first of 
March, and what will prevent your coming, etc. 
Many students will come to attend the chemical if 
they could at the same time attend the anatomical 
lectures. This village has a number of medical stu- 
dents. I have made these requests of you because I 
have not heard the particulars from Dr. Tuttle. I 
am in hopes nothing will prevent you from giving 
the course as is expected. This notice was prepared 
before I came. 

*' Remember me to Dr. Church and Dr. Coventry. 
** Yours most respectfully, 

*' (Signed) Jedediah Smith. 
**Dr. James Douglass.'' 

**This may Certify that for some months past I 
have been acquainted with Doctor James Douglas. 
It appears from his Diplomas that he has had very 
favourable opportunities of acquiring a competent 
knowledge of Anatomy and Surgery, and so far as 
I have been enabled to judge, he appears expert in 



MY FATHER ^S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 127 

his profession. I know nothing derogatory to his 
character as a Gentleman. Utica, Jany. 7th, 1825. 

''Alexr. Coventry." 

''BERKSHIRE MEDICAL INSTITUTION 

"Oct. 5th, 1826. 
*'To James Douglas, M.D. 
''Dear Sir:— 

"With pleasure I inform you that in compliance 
with the representations and wishes of the Faculty 
of this Instn., the Trustees of Wms. College have con- 
ferred on you the honourary degree of Doctor of 
Medicine. As you did not in your second communi- 
cation intimate which would be most agreeable to 
your wishes, an honourary degree or a degree of a 
different character, and since presumedly the for- 
mer would fully answer your purpose, we followed 
the dictates of our own feelings, and succeeded with 
the Trustees as I have stated. No expense attaches 
to the transaction except some five or six dollars 
which may have been paid out for the document, its 
execution and postage, which I have been obliged to 
pay on all the communications which have passed 
between us, while travelling in the mail to and from 
the line between the State and the Province, not be- 
ing able to persuade our Postmaster that it was not 
his duty to exact the P. Office fees. This, however, 
has been a matter of necessity, growing out of the 
nature of things, and is rather to be placed to the 
account of international courtesy, which is at all 
times due from one gentleman to another, situated 
as we are. I therefore pray you to consider it of no 



128 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

consequence, and give yourself no further trouble 
about it. Should business or pleasure bring you this 
way, it would give me and my colleages much satis- 
faction to become personally acquainted with you. 
I should have written you sooner had I not wanted 
to have your degree executed, which was indeed done 
some time since, but did not come to hand till last 
evening. I hope this apology for delay will be satisfac- 
tory. Will you do me the favour to inform Dr. 
Morrin that his documents came safely to hand a 
few days ago. They arrived too late to be acted on 
this year, but shall be duly attended to next. I have 
the honour to be, sir, 

"Yours, etc., etc.*' 

My father's autobiography continues: ''On my 
return to Utica, my brother George, having arrived, 
I fitted up a dissecting room over my office, and 
resumed my dissections. I had obtained the body 
of a Negro boy, a slave of Judge Kipp; the fact 
became known, and as body snatching was a State's 
prison offence, the Judge was proceeding to take 
steps to send me back to Auburn as a State's pris- 
oner, when I determined to go boldly to the Judge, 
and plead my own case. I was very ungraciously re- 
ceived; I was charged with violating the sanctity of 
his household, and outraging the feelings of the ladies 
of his family. I pleaded that a knowledge of Anato- 
my was indispensible to a medical man, that, know- 
ing the penalty, I could have no intention to wound 
the feelings of the ladies, for whom I entertained the 
most profound respect, and that I had taken precau- 
tions against it coming to his or their knowledge. 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 129 

The Judge left the room for a minute or two; soon 
after his return, two ladies entered it, ostensibly for 
the purpose of looking for something, but, evidently 
to see the person who had committed the atrocious 
act. The Judge then read me a lecture, saying, that 
if the case had come before him in any other form, 
he would have considered it to be his duty to press 
the penalty, but, as it affected him personally, he 
would let me off, on my assurance that I would not 
commit such a crime again. This I gave him, know- 
ing that he had not another Negro boy to die. 

*'The following summer passed very pleasantly. I 
was very successful in my practice, very happy in 
my domestic relations, and very sanguine in my future 
prospects. In the ensuing Autumn, I again fulfilled 
my engagements to the Auburn Medical College, and 
returned to Utiea, to my practice, and to my studies. A 
Scotch lad, without friends, had died at a factory at 
Hartford, about four miles from town; instead of 
his body, mistaking the grave, I got that of a well 
known and highly respected citizen. A few days after- 
ward, being suddenly called out, I left my office door 
unlocked for my brother, who was at the moment ab- 
sent. On my return, I found a stage-driver, who 
finding no one in the office below, had gone upstairs, 
and was looking at his old employer. He exclaimed, 
*I guess I never expected to see my old friend P. 
again/ He assured me that he would not mention 
the circumstances, etc., etc. I professed to believe 
him, but, as soon as he was gone, my brother and I 
reburied the remains, and having no faith in the stage- 
driver's promises, but full faith in Judge Kipp's 



130 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

assurances, Mrs. Douglas and I packed up a few things, 
I harnessed my horse to a small sleigh, called a pung, 
and lost no time in getting into Canada by crossing the 
St. Lawrence on the ice, at Ogdensburg. My brother 
remained in Utica for some months, to sell my house, 
and settle my affairs. I never heard that the stage- 
driver mentioned his discovery, and my flight may have 
been needless. At any rate this abruptly terminated 
my citizenship of the U. S., and I have not yet decided 
whether or not it has been to my advantage. 

'*0n my arrival in Montreal, I found two of my 
old Edinburgh class mates, Drs. Stevenson and Holmes. 
They both strongly advised me to remain in Canada, 
and I must confess, that since my marriage, my desire 
and intention to return to India, were considerably 
weakened. I remained several days in Montreal, 
when, the season advancing, and fearing to lose snow 
roads, I embarked in my pung and started for Quebec, 
where I arrived on a fine afternoon, on the 13th. 
March, 1826. Finding myself in the approaches to 
St. Louis Gate, and thinking that I was entering the 
military works, I turned round, and approaching 
John's Gate, I again turned round, and seeing St. 
Rochs below me, I made my way there, and ultimately 
got into Quebec by following a carter through Hope 
Gate. 

''Once fairly within the walls, I looked out for an 
hotel with stabling, and after a while, I got into La- 
fontaine's, in what was then the Hay Market. My 
wife and I then strolled through the streets and ram- 
parts, and were so charmed with the situation, the mili- 
tary look, the views of the magnificent river and sur- 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 131 

rounding scenery, that we resolved to make it our 
future home. The next day, I waited upon the Revd. 
Mr. Booth, the Wesleyan minister, and requested him 
to recommend me to private lodgings. He took me 
to Mr. Smillie, the jeweller on Mountain Hill, where 
my wife and I were very comfortably lodged, until 
we had provided a permanent residence. The next 
object was to get rid of my horse, a very handsome 
and powerful animal ; I sold it to Col. Gore, R. A. A 
few days afterwards, I succeeded in leasing a very 
large and commodious house on Mountain Hill, the 
property of Mr. Symes, the father of the late G. B. 
Symes Esq. I got possession in April, and was soon 
afterwards joined by my brother, who had succeeded 
in collecting the debts due to me in Utica, in selling 
my house there, and settling my affairs generally. I 
passed my first summer in Quebec without any oc- 
currence of consequence. I paid my expenses by 
chance practice, and by practice among the shipping. 
**In the Autumn, I determined to give a course 
of lectures and demonstration on Anatomy, and to open 
a room for its practice. I commenced in the cellar 
of my house on Mountain Hill, when Dr. Painchaud, 
the leading French practioner, called upon me, and 
offered to give me, and to heat, a small building ad- 
joining his residence, as lecture and dissecting rooms, 
on condition that I gave to him and to his son, free 
admission. I very gladly accepted this timely offer, 
and used it for many years. Some time afterwards, a 
circumstance occurred, which although trivial in it- 
self, was the means of bringing me under the notice 
of the profession. One morning, I met Dr. Morrin, 



132 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

who told me that an important operation was about 
to be performed at the Hotel Dieu Hospital, and, as I 
was fond of surgery, that I might like to witness it. 
He said that the operation was to be performed at 
10 o^clock, that he would meet me there, and intro- 
duce me. I was there punctually, but not Dr. Mor- 
rin; several medical men were present. When the 
patient was brought into the room, he presented an 
arm, which had been crushed in a threshing machine, 
from the fingers to nearly the shoulder. There was 
a good deal of handling and discussion as to the 
means of arresting the bleeding, there being hardly 
space for a tourniquet. As I was a stranger to all 
present, I did not like to give an opinion unasked ; at 
length I said to Dr. Hall, the operator, that I thought 
the best mode would be to remove the arm at the 
shoulder joint, there would then be a better stump, 
and no danger of it projecting, under the action of the 
deltoid muscle. Dr. Parant, one of the gentlemen 
present turned sharply round to me, and exclaimed, 
'Who are you, and what do you know about it.' I 
replied that it was an operation which I had already 
performed, and if the gentleman would accept of my 
assistance, I would secure the patient from any risk 
of hemorrage. Dr. Hall was delighted at the idea. 
I said to him, 'If you raise a flap of the deltoid, I 
will secure the articular arteries, you can then open 
the joint, and separate the head of the humerus from 
its attachments, while I make pressure on the axillary 
artery. ' Dr. Hall adopted the mode of operation, and 
performed it remarkably well. The patient recov- 
ered without the occurrence of any bad symptom. 



MY FATHEK'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 133 

''The first years of my life in Quebec, were years 
of unalloyed happiness and prosperity. 

''During the winter of 1828-9, I suffered from an 
attack of typhus fever, in its most malignant form, 
and only escaped death at the last hour, by the inter- 
vention of Dr. Bone, the Chief of the Army Medical 
Department. My severe and protracted illness, caused 
the loss of my beloved wife, whose unremitting care 
and watchfulness undermined a constitution not nat- 
urally strong, and induced disease of the lungs, which 
terminated her existence. 

"My medical and surgical practice at this time, had 
become extensive and remunerative. My operations 
on club-feet and for the cure of squinting, had 
brought me into some notice, when the reports of the 
appearance of Asiatic Cholera in Europe, and its rav- 
ages in Sunderland, caused much speculation and some 
alarm in Canada. The British Government wrote 
to the G-ovemour General in Quebec, notifying him of 
its existence and spread in England, and recommend- 
ing him to adopt such precautionary or other meas- 
ures as might be deemed necessary. The matter was 
placed in the hands of Dr. Skey, the Inspector of 
Military Hospitals in Canada, to report on, or to 
suggest what action, if any, should be taken. In the 
meanwhile, I had taken the alarm, and adopted meas- 
ures for the protection of my own family. At 
length, Dr. Skey thought fit to call a meeting of 
Medical men, of magistrates, and of the principal citi- 
zens. He addressed them at length, saying, that no 
danger was to be apprehended from the cholera 
which could not cross the Atlantic, but, they would 



134 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

improve the occasion by cleaning the streets, the 
yards, and abating sundry nuisances. I listened at- 
tentively to these remarks, and requesting to be heard, 
I said that I thought it probable that the cholera 
would come to Quebec. Dr. Skey exclaimed, 'Are 
you so foolish as to think that the cholera can cross 
the Atlantic?' I replied, *I am foolish enough to 
think so.' I then said that returning from India, 
cholera had broken out on the ship on the tenth day 
after leaving Saugor Island, that the last case had 
occurred on the tenth day after its first appearance 
on board, and that ten days more, would allow it to 
be transplanted in America. I said, 'I am so con- 
vinced that the cholera will cross the Atlantic, that 
I have engaged the cabin of Capt. N. AUard's 
schooner to convey my wife and family to a remote 
point in Gasp6, as soon as navigation opens. These 
remarks were like the bursting of a bomb shell on 
the meeting; Dr. Skey, who was a thorough English 
gentleman of the old school, again addressed it, say- 
ing, that he thought it should be the duty of the 
Government, and of the civic authorities, to take the 
necessary precautionary measures, to meet the pes- 
tilence, in ease it should cross the ocean, although he 
still thought it more than doubtful. 

''About the middle of April in 1832, and before the 
opening of the navigation of the St. Lawrence, I 
saw a case of blue cholera in a labouring man, re- 
siding in Diamond Harbour. Early in May, and be- 
fore the opening of the navigation, I saw two other 
cases in the same neighbourhood, but not in the same 
house; I called my friends Drs. Morrin and Rowley 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 135 

to visit them, they were sceptical, but confessed that 
they had never seen similar symptoms before. All 
three of these cases died. I was fully convinced that 
their cases were of the true Asiatic cholera, such as 
I had witnessed in India. 

* ' The citizens of Quebec, who woke up on the morn- 
ing of the 8th. June, found the Upper town, the 
Lower town, and the different suburbs, dotted with the 
bodies of the dead and dying. It would require the 
pen of Defoe to describe the awful sights and scenes 
of death, sin, and misery which I witnessed during 
that awful visitation of the cholera in Quebec. Que- 
bec and its suburbs, about that time, contained about 
30,000 inhabitants; the mortality was between 1 and 
4,000. Many however, out of this number, were sea- 
men and immigrants. 

'*It is a curious, but, I believe a well established 
fact, that in visitations of the plague, cholera, and 
other widespread scenes of desolation; misery and 
death ; crime, debauchery and recklessness of life, have 
prevailed in proportion to the amount of death and 
suffering. This certainly was the case in Quebec, dur- 
ing the cholera of the year 1832. 

**The discussions with the Board of Health, and 
my so strongly expressed convictions, during the 
winter, that the Asiatic cholera would assuredly visit 
Quebec, induced many persons to believe, when it 
did come, that I having had experience of the dis- 
ease in India, knew more about it, and its treatment, 
than any one else in the City. This impression led 
to my temporary, and in very many cases, to my per- 
manent medical connexion with many of the first 



136 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

families in Quebec. I was therefore so constantly 
occupied, that during the season I rarely, if ever, 
had an undisturbed night's rest. I was greatly as- 
sisted by a younger brother, Richard, who had come 
out from Scotland to replace my brother George, he 
having taken office at the Quarantine station at 
Grosse Isle. 

"It is a fact which I have heard confirmed by 
medical men, that, when mind or body, or both, are 
exhausted by long continued strain upon their ener- 
gies, that their tone is more quickly restored by en- 
gaging in some occupation or amusement, sometimes 
quite foreign to the usual habits of the individual. I 
was always passionately fond of trout fishing, and fre- 
quently indulged myself with an afternoon's sport 
in the Montmorencie river. One afternoon, during 
the height of the cholera, my friend. Dr. Caldwell 
came into my house, and finding me lying down, ut- 
terly exhausted and worn out, said, that he was going 
to the river with Mr. Rogers, and that I must go with 
them; I exclaimed, 'What, go fishing with the town 
in its present state, I could not think of such a 
thing.' He replied, 'Why what use are you to the 
town, you are regularly done up.' I went with them 
and returned able to resume my work. 

' ' Frequently afterwards, when worn out with men- 
tal exertion and the want of sleep, I have started off 
to the river, and leaving my horse and cart at La- 
motte 's, have luxuriated in a couple of hours of wading 
and trout fishing at the Sable, Three Falls, or the 
Prairie. This change invariably, completely and at 
once, restored my energies both of mind and body. At 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 137 

this time, the time of which I write, now more than 
forty years ago, there was only an Indian trail through 
the woods beyond Lamotte's, and anglers from town, 
rarely went higher than La Prairie. The best pools 
and rapids had been named by the Indians, Falbosse, 
Canoe, Grande Roche, Petite Roche, Grand Peche, etc., 
etc. The trout were very fine, their size and game 
qualities would have delighted old Isaac Walton. 
Alas, all this has passed away like a dream or like a 
tale that is told; there is now, along the banks of 
the river, a capital road, leading to an Irish settle- 
ment named Laval, situated above the upper fishing 
grounds of former days, and instead of taking a bas- 
ket of trout, weighing from half a pound to four, and 
occasionally to six pounds each, the angler does well 
or thinks he does well, if he takes a dozen fish, the 
largest of which does not exceed one quarter of a 
pound in weight." One has only to go fifteen miles 
above Laval to get as good fishing as my father got 
70 years ago. ''Snipe, forty and fifty years ago were 
plentiful on the beaches near Quebec; a very good 
bag could Eilways be made up at St. Pierre on the 
Island, or on the beach at Chateau Richer. 

** After the great amount of sickness and death from 
the cholera, which prevailed in Canada during the 
summer and Autumn of 1832, and which seemed to 
have carried off among its 3,200 victims all those sickly 
or prone to disease, the following winter season was an 
unusually healthy one, and found me with an intense 
desire to repair the damage which both my mental 
and physical powers had received from the drain upon 
them, during the previous summer and autumn. 



138 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

**I thought that perhaps the best mode, or the 
mode best suited to my natural tastes, would be to 
throw physic to the dogs for a few days and explore 
the virgin forests, among the hills to the North of 
Quebec. The Huron tribe of Indians had their vil- 
lage, named Lorette, about seven miles from Quebec, 
some of their hunters had found a yard, or, as they 
called it a 'ravage' of moose deer, in the forest, 
about 50 miles to the North of Quebec. I agreed to 
accompany them to the hunt as soon as the snow was 
sufficiently deep, aud the usual crust had been formed 
on its surface. This crust is formed by a two or 
three days thaw, and subsequent frost, which makes 
progress very pleasant and easy to the hunter, but 
very difficult and unpleasant to the moose, as the crust, 
through which it breaks, impedes its progress, but 
enables the hunter on his snow shoes to overtake it 
in a couple of hours, more or less, according to the 
depth of the snow, and the thickness or thinness of the 
crust. The depth of snow in the woods, to the North 
of Quebec, may be considered to be five or six feet, 
in the end of February. I speak now of fifty years 
ago, since then, the depth of snow has sensibly 
diminished. 

''The band or family of moose, consisting of the 
male and female, with generally, two young ones, re- 
spectively of the ages of one and two years, takes up 
its winter quarters, or makes its 'ravage,' on the 
southerly side of some low hill covered by hardwood 
trees, the outer bark of these trees being the only 
food during the winter. This, from the high con- 
dition of the animals, seems to be amply sufficient 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 139 

for their wants. During the Spring and Sununer, their 
supply of food is most abundant, as well from the 
bark, as from the young wood and the leaves of the 
trees. There is no grass, and even if there were, the 
short neck, the long legs, and the great height of the 
moose deer, would prevent his reaching it. At all 
seasons, a full grown male moose, is a magnificent 
specimen of the deer tribe, particularly so, during 
the Summer and Autumn months. His horns are pal- 
mated, and of great size. I possessed a pair, which 
including the frontal bone, had a spread of upwards 
of six feet. I gave them to Captain Vansittart of 
the Coldstream Guards, and have not been able to re- 
place them by a pair measuring more than 4 ft. 8 
in. These I still keep. 

**The flesh of the moose in tenderness, in delicacy 
of flavour and in juicyness, excels that of any of the 
deer tribe with which I am acquainted, and 1 have 
eaten venison in all quarters of the globe. During 
the winters in Canada, I was always kept abundantly 
supplied by my friends, the Indians of Lorette. 

**In February I started with a party of four In- 
dians; and after a drive in country sleighs of about 
thirty miles, we arrived at a small deserted log hut, 
on the edge of the primeval forest, where we passed 
the night. Early in the morning, we started on our 
snowshoes, in Indian fyle, two of the Indians drag- 
ging long narrow sledges, called toboggans, on which 
we carried our provisions, our cooking utensils, our 
blankets, and some steel traps for catching beaver. We 
were accompanied by two small yelping, and very ugly 
cur dogs. 



140 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

*'Late in the afternoon, we arrived within a couple 
of miles of the moose, but sufficiently distant to avoid 
alarming them, where, choosing a snug sheltered spot, 
the Indians collected a quantity of light dry wood, 
made a roaring fire, preparations for tea and a sub- 
stantial repast. They then erected a camp, thatched 
and carpeted it with spruce boughs, shortly had every- 
thing ready for a good supper and a good night 's rest, 
both of which I enjoyed, as I had seldom done 
before. The next morning we breakfasted at day- 
light, and taking only our guns and some biscuit, we 
started for the ravage so as to be able to run down 
the moose before the sun had got high enough to 
soften the light crust on the snow. After a walk of 
less than an hour, we arrived at their yard, they 
however had taken the alarm and made off. We fol- 
lowed their track, which we had no difficulty in 
doing, as it was only one deep furrow in the snow, 
very narrow at the bottom, and three feet wide, or 
nearly so, at the top. Now and then, we could hear 
the barking of the little dogs, and could see where the 
moose had occasionally turned round to attack them. 
After less than an hour's hard running, we came up 
to them, they were quite exhausted and helpless from 
the enormous muscular exertions required to force 
their bodies through nearly six feet of snow, with 
the addition of a light crust of ice on its surface. 
There were four of them, an old bull, a full grown 
female, and two young ones of different ages. When 
they were killed, by shooting them, which was a tame 
piece of work, a good fire was kindled, they were 
cut up into portable pieces, and two Indians were sent 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 141 

back for the toboggans, which had been abandoned 
in the ravage. In the meanwhile, the Indians who 
had remained cooked and ate, and then cooked and ate 
again, until I was heartily ashamed of my own poor 
performances, of which, at any other time, I would 
have been proud. When the toboggans were brought 
back, they were laden with the mouffles, the tongues, 
and with the choicest pieces of the meat, the remainder, 
with the skins, were buried under the snow, to be re- 
moved by the Indians of the village. 

**As the Indians knew of the existence of a lodge 
of beavers in the forest, about two miles to the West 
of our camp, and as there was still sufficient daylight 
to set the traps, which we had brought for the pur- 
pose, they resolved at my request, to do so at once, 
and thus enable me to see a Beaver hunt, and save a 
day's time. 

** After a hurried walk of about a couple of miles, 
we arrived at the great and perfectly level plain and 
clearing in the forest, where there remained only here 
and there, a huge hard-wood tree, a maple, destitute 
of foliage and of bark. This, the Indians told me, was 
the Beaver's dam, of course at this season, it was 
covered over with snow. 

''The Indians made a large hole through this snow 
at the upper end of this artificial lake, and sunk three 
traps similar in construction to an ordinary trap, 
but, of a size corresponding to the size and quality 
of game they were intended to hold. Each trap was 
baited with a piece of maple wood, which is the or- 
dinary, and I believe is the only natural food of the 
Beaver, and not fish, as is frequently represented in 



142 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

picture and in story books, and on signs. The next 
morning, on visiting the three traps, we found a 
Beaver in each, there were two full grown and a young 
one. After carefully taking off the skins, which are 
valuable to the fur-dealer, the choicest parts of the 
meat were packed, for carriage to the village, where 
it is considered by the Indians, to be a delicacy. I 
saved the bony skulls, which, in their structure, and 
in that of jaws and teeth, are anotcmically very cu- 
rious and interesting to a naturalist. This was my 
first and my only opportunity of seeing an inhabited 
Beaver dam, although I have been very many times 
out after Moose, when the snow was deep enough to 
render snowshoeing light and easy. The band of Moose, 
when disturbed in its ravage, frequently separates, 
each individual taking and keeping a separate track in 
the same direction, but within sight of each other. 
This of course, in the deep snow, is attended by very 
obvious consequences, favourable to the hunter. 

*'In 1834, cholera again appeared in Quebec, its 
intensity, in individual cases, was certainly as great 
as in 1832, and I could perceive no difference in the 
relative proportions, between the deaths and the re- 
coveries. The whole number of deaths reported in 
the City, and among the seamen and emigrants, was 
1800, which was very little more than one half of the 
number of deaths in 1832. 

** During the few following years, my practice was 
lucrative, and had increased so much, that I was obliged 
in a great measure, to abandon the practice of the 
Coves and shipping. I therefore decided to remove 
to the Upper Town. At that time, a very good house 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 143 

in the Place d'Armes, the property of Col. Gugy, 
was to let, but as I was disposed to purchase, I waited 
upon the Colonel for the purpose. He told me 
frankly, that he was desirous to sell the house, as 
he was in want of money, but, that he could not give 
me a valid title ; if however, I would give him a half 
of the purchase money, he would secure me in pos- 
session, and give me a ratification before long. I ac- 
cepted his terms, which were faithfully carried out 
by him. I may state here, that since the purchase 
here mentioned, I have had frequent transactions 
with Col. Gugy involving large amounts of money, 
and that I have never had cause to doubt his word 
or good faith. 

**In the practice of Surgery, I have witnessed 
great changes in the past sixty years. Many opera- 
tions for the removal or the relief of diseases, or of 
bodily infirmities, are now commonly performed, 
which were then unknown. The relief from pain, 
during surgical operations, is still a desideratum. 
Many modes have been tried, with but indifferent 
success; some of them are extremely uncertain in 
their effects, while others are unsafe, or are posi- 
tively dangerous. 

*' Mesmerism, or Animal Magnetism, for some time 
was in vogue. It was apparently perfectly safe, and 
free from any ill effects; its employment however, 
was extremely uncertain; few persons possessed suf- 
ficient power to render it always available, and, even, 
when one was found, who possessed the required 
power, the patient frequently could not be brought 



144 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

or kept under its influence. For these reasons it 
fell into disuse. 

* ' One of the first cases in which I saw it tried, was 
eminently successful. Dr. Marsden possessed con- 
siderable mesmeric power, and assisted me, by exercis- 
ing it during the performance of an operation which 
was for the excision of the half of the lower jaw 
bone. The patient was a powerful, a strong minded, 
and a sensible man, about fifty years of age. Dr. 
Marsden mesmerised him tJioroughly, while I removed 
the diseased bone, an operation, which from its pe- 
culiar nature, occupied a much longer time in its 
performance, than an amputation of a limb. After 
the wound was dressed, the patient described his feel- 
ings during the operation, he said that he felt no 
pain, that he was fully aware of my dividing the soft 
parts, and that he distinctly heard the sawing across 
of the bone. There were several medical men pres- 
ent, who, as well as I, were delighted at the success 
of Dr. Marsden 's mesmeric influence in obviating all 
sensations of pain during so tedious and painful an 
operation. We saw visions and dreamt dreams of do- 
ing away entirely with the painful scenes, so often 
witnessed during surgical operations, particularly in 
the cases of females. 

"A few days afterwards, I had again an oppor- 
tunity of testing the power of Magnetism. The case 
was that of a young lady, with a fistula lacrymalis. 
The operation for its cure, was comparatively a pain- 
less one. Dr. Marsden mesmerized the lady again and 
again, as soon however, as I approached her, she 
woke up in an extremely nervous and excited state, I 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 145 

was consequently obliged to perform the operation, 
without mesmeric assistance. When the patient had 
retired, there were differences of opinion expressed, 
as to the causes of the failure. One opinion was, 
the vicinity of the eye to the sensorium. Dr. Mars- 
don thought the cause was the peculiar nervous state 
of the patient. He said, that the day before he had 
mesmerised a young woman, whom no one could 
awake without his concurrence; doubts being ex- 
pressed, he then and there went and brought her. He 
mesmerised her, so that she could not be aroused 
by ordinary means, but as an argumentum crucis, 
although there was nothing the matter with her eye, 
I passed the probe into the punctum, through the 
duct, and withdrew it through the nostril, without pro- 
ducing in her any sign of sensation. Other modes of 
removing or alleviating the pain, during surgical op- 
eration have been adopted from time to time, none 
however so free from objection as mesmerism. I have 
fully and faithfully tried them. Chloroform had its 
day, and was, and is yet highly extolled. I gave it a 
fair and extended trial, under various circumstances 
and conditions of age, sex and disease. Its effects in 
doing away intirely, or, in a great degree with the 
pain during surgical operations, and painful maladies, 
and even in painful natural processes, were greatly 
extolled. I was fortunate in never meeting with a 
case in which its use was followed by immediate 
fatal effects, but, I became impressed with the con- 
viction, that its employment during surgical opera- 
tions was followed by deterioration of the system, 
evinced by the appearance and condition of the wounds 



146 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

after operation. To solve the question, I instituted 
a series of comparisons in surgical cases, which were 
as nearly similar to each other, as possible. I placed 
repeatedly two patients after operation, in the same 
ward, and in the healing of the wounds or stumps, as 
well as in the general state and condition of the pa- 
tients, I perceived a marked difference in favour of 
those who had not been subjected to the action of 
the chloroform. 

**In 18 — I was asked by Hammond Gowan Esqr. 
and Dr. Morrin, who were the Commissioners for the 
Marine and Emigrant Hospital to take the Medical 
charge of the establishment. Dr. Hall had died, the 
steward had died, the apothecary had been removed 
by severe illne^, and the house-surgeon was then suf- 
fering from an attack of delirium tremens. I hesi- 
tated on account of the demoralized state of the Hos- 
pital; my hesitation was met by a promise to give 
me the intire control of the interne of the establish- 
ment. I agreed to accept, on condition of having a 
colleague, with whom I offered to divide the salary. 
This was acceeded to, and the Grovemour-General, Lord 
Gosford, appointed Dr. C. Fremont, a young gentle- 
man who had lately settled in the City, and who was 
an intire stranger to me. I refused to accept, unless 
with a Medical Man of my own standing in the pro- 
fession. Lord Gosford then appointed Dr. Pain- 
chaud, the oldest practitioner in the City, with whom 
I worked many years. To avoid misconception, I 
thought it proper to call upon Dr. Fremont and ex- 
plain my reasons for preferring a medical colleague 
of older standing. He told me frankly, that the ap- 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 147 

pointment was owing to the mtimate relations, be- 
tween his friends, the Messrs. Pemberton, and Lord 
Gosford. From that time, until his death, my con- 
nection with Dr. Fremont was most intimate. I 
found him to be an honest, an upright, and a high- 
minded gentleman, and with a thorough knowledge of 
his profession. As an assistant in surgical opera- 
tions, he was of the greatest use to me for many 
years, as well in hospital, as in private practice. 

"On taking charge of the Hospital, Dr. Painchaud 
and I divided the duties. I took charge of the intire 
surgical cases, and of one half of the fever and other 
wards, Dr. P. took the remainder. At this time, and 
for many years afterwards, the Marine and Emigrant 
Hospital, as a school of practical surgery, was sec- 
ond to none on this continent. Several circumstances 
tended to make it so. There was a large fleet en- 
gaged in the timber trade, the ships were compara- 
tively small, seldom exceeding 500 tons; they were 
loaded by the seamen, and by the hired emigrants di- 
rected by and superintended by a stevedore. There 
was no steam, and none of the modem appliances for 
hoisting in, and stowing away, the heavy timber, which 
was almost the only cargo then shipped. The con- 
sequences were, that great numbers of fractures were 
admitted into Hospital, as w^ell as many which had 
occurred in the crowded emigrant ships, during the 
Spring passage out. 

*'In the Summer season of 1849, cholera again in- 
vaded Quebec ; its ravages however were not so great 
as on its visitations in 1832 and 1834, and its compara- 
tive mortality in individual cases, was somewhat less. 



148 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

The popular idea being that it was intensely can- 
tagious, particularly after death, no time sometimes 
was lost, in hurrying on the interment; to facilitate 
this, the cofSn was sometimes procured, and I have 
reason to believe, was utilized before death. I have 
heard of patients recovering, after having been cof- 
fined, though I never witnessed a case. I have how- 
ever more than once, seen the coffin laid out in the 
room, and alongside of the patient's bed, before death. 
I recollect one very marked, and very absurd case; a 
young lady, whose father was in a Government Office, 
was very ill, I had left her in the blue stage, and 
pulseless, when I returned and entered the room, per- 
ceiving a mounted coffin on a table, I was about to 
withdraw, when the father called out, ' Come in, come 
in, I don't think she is any worse.' The young lady 
is now a grandmother. 

"I recollect a more absurd instance, which occurred 
during a later visitation of the cholera to Quebec. 
Mr. Swords had leased extensive buildings in St. 
Louis Street, as an hotel, they were opened in the 
Fall, to receive a party of excursionists from New 
York. On the night of the arrival of the excur- 
sionists, three of them took ill with cholera, of whom 
two died before morning. About daybreak, I was 
called to visit the third case. On leaving my house, 
I found a number of the lady and gentlemen excur- 
sionists, sitting upon my door steps, they had rushed 
out of Sword's Hotel, and did not know where to go. 
On reaching the hotel, I found that all the guests, 
and most of the servants had abandoned it. The pa- 
tient was Mr. Benedict, a Jeweller of New York. 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 149 

He was in a very precarious state, and already in the 
blue stage of the disease. Mr. Swords also was in 
a blue stage of rage, although collapse in him, did 
not come on until some days afterwards. He in- 
sisted upon Mr. Benedict's immediate removal; he 
threatened to put him out into the street, I told him 
and if he did so, and Mr. Benedict died, I would call 
an inquest on his body, and obtain a verdict of man- 
slaughter. I got a very good nurse; Mr. B. rallied, 
and in two or three days afterwards, was carried on a 
litter to the house of that honest kind hearted soul, 
Mr. Robert Symes, in Palace Street, where he per- 
fectly recovered. On being removed from Mr. 
Swords, Mr. B. asked me to settle his bill. Among a 
number of usual and unusual item-s, was the extremely 
unusual one for the payment of a coffin, which Mr. 
Swords had purchased for Mr. Benedict's use. I 
very decidedly objected to pay for this item, on the 
plea that Mr. B. had not ordered the coffin, and that 
moreover, when ordered, he had very decidedly de- 
clined to use it. To this argument Mr. Swords re- 
plied, that he did not require a coffin for his own 
use, that he had procured it for Mr. Benedict's use, 
and insisted upon being paid for it. I proposed that 
the coffin should be kept for the use of which ever 
of them should require it first. Now although I am 
convinced that even Judge Andrew Stuart could not 
give a clearer or more righteous judgment, or at any 
rate a more unbiased one, Mr. Swords was not sat- 
isfied, but still insisted upon being paid for it. I 
at last convinced him by saying, that I would pub- 
lish his little bill in every paper in the Union, and 



150 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

make him so famous, that no traveller would in fu- 
ture visit Quebec, without at least looking at the 
outside of his hotel. 

' ' In the practice of Medical Men, cases occur where 
their duty as citizens, and the confidence reposed in 
them by their patients, are strongly antagonistic. 
For instance, cases of wilful murder, cases of as- 
sault with murderous intent, cases of poisoning, and 
other criminal acts, occasionally come to their knowl- 
edge, when for want of suspicion, or of proof, the 
perpetrators go unwhipt of justice. Cases occur, in 
which, knowing all the facts and the circumstances, the 
Medical Man is tempted to constitute himself the 
judge in the matter. For instance, one fine after- 
noon in summer, a very respectable tradesman came 
to me in great agitation, with a request that I would 
visit his wife, who was seriously hurt. He frankly 
told me, that on returning to his house, he had found 
her standing in the recess of an attic window, quite 
drunk, and had given her a slap on the face, which had 
caused her to fall out of the window. On arriving 
at his house, I found her dead. The verdict of the 
Coroner's Court, if the Jurors had a knowledge of 
the facts, would entail a verdict of manslaughter, and 
the incarceration of the husband in the common 
prison until the Session of the Criminal Court in 
October, when the result of the trial would be doubt- 
ful. I advised him to go at once to Mr. Panet the 
coroner as sent by me, and to let me know when the 
inquest would be held, so that I might be out of the 
way. He might then trust to the evidence of the neigh- 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 151 

bours, and to his own good character. A verdict of 
accidental death was rendered. 

"As a case of circumstantial death evidence, that 
of Dr. Dill was a very strong one. He came from 
Scotland to Quebec, as the Master of the School in 
connection with St. Andrew's Church. After being 
inducted, he informed the Revd. Dr. Cook, that he 
was a medical man, and desirous to practice at his 
spare time, and for that purpose required a license. 
Dr. Cook introduced him to me, for the purpose of 
getting information on the matter. Dr. Dill was a 
tall and very good looking man, but his manner im- 
pressed me unfavourably. I told him to call upon 
me the next day, which he did, and conversation with 
him convinced me that he knew nothing whatever of 
medicine, and that the diploma which he produced had 
not been obtained by him, through any proof of his 
knowledge of medicine. I told his friend, Dr. Cook that 
in my opinion Dr. Dill was insane, and would be likely 
to be dangerous. He got a license, he took a house, 
fitted up an office, and married a very respectable 
young lady with some property. One midnight, on 
passing, I found his house on fire. The doctor, with 
a number of people, was in the street; he informed 
me that he and Mrs. Dill were in bed when they were 
awakened by the smoke, that Mrs. Dill had retired 
to dress, and he supposed had gone to her friends. 
The Doctor was quite cool and collected, he was 
fully dressed, even to the pin in his shirt front. The 
house was burnt to the ground, nothing was saved, 
and Mrs. Dill was missing. Her remains were found 
on the crown of a brick vault in the basement of the 



152 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

house, consequently, the back of her body was not 
touched by the fire. The coloured silk dress, the 
laced stays, and the underclothing were found, as 
worn on the previous day, the brooch and the finger 
rings had not been taken off, proving that the poor 
lady had not been in bed. The verdict of the Coro- 
ner's Court, endorsed Dr. Dill's account of the 
night's work, with its monstrous discrepancies, and 
he was paid his insurances. 

' ' The murdered lady's brother in law, D.Mc Gie Esq. 
was not satisfied. He branded Dr. Dill openly as a 
murderer and an incendiary. The Doctor did not seem 
to notice these charges, his friends however insisted 
upon his clearing himself by bringing an action 
against Mr. Mc Gie, for defamation of character and 
for damages. The action was brought before Sir 
James Stuart; the jury awarded homeopathic dam- 
ages, and Sir James expressed his opinion by refusing 
to Dr. Dill his costs. This verdict induced Dr. Dill 
to quit Quebec. The next heard of him, was a sen- 
tence of imprisonment for life, in the Penitentiary 
at Kingston, U. C, for the commission of a murder. 
There, he was placed to work in the Machine Shop, 
and after a few years, by the exercise of wonderful en- 
gineering ingenuity and contrivance, by manipulating 
the locks and using the machinery belting as a ladder, 
he managed to escape to the United States, where he 
was safe. His insanity however, induced him to return 
to Canada in search of a situation as a school-mas- 
ter; he wa^ recognized, and sent back to the Peni- 
tentiary, to end his days there, which he did, some 






MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 153 

years afterwards. He was conspicuous by a heavy 
iron weight and chain, fastened to his ankle. 

''Merely circumstantial evidence is sometimes very 
strong, and has undoubtedly been the means of hanging 
many innocent persons. During my life, I have wit- 
nessed different cases, in my own practice, which 
might have involved serious consequences. 

*'A gentleman of high literary attainments, and of 
good position in society wais subject to fits of un- 
governable passion on very slight causes. His wife 
was a most amiable person. On one occasion, after 
a very noisy and violent altercation, of which the serv- 
ant was a witness, he retired to a separate apart- 
ment. During the night, his wife hearing him breath- 
ing heavily, entered his room, and was horrified on 
finding him insensible, and apparently dying. She 
at once roused the servant, but without explaining 
her reason, sent her for me. When the girl had left 
the house, she placed the lighted candle near the 
bed, and while endeavouring to raise her husband's 
head, ignited the bed curtains, which were instantly 
in a blaze. With great presence of mind, she suc- 
ceeded in extinguishing the flames. On my arrival, 
I found upon the dressing table, an empty phial, 
which had contained laudanum. Had she not torn 
down the curtains and succeeded in putting out the 
flames she could never have relieved herself of the 
suspicion of having murdered her husband, and of hav- 
ing sent the servant out of the house on a false errand, 
while she set flre to the house, to cover up the crime. 

** During the session of the Court of Queen's bench, 
in the spring of 1845, the grand jurors made a very 



154 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

strong presentment on the treatment of the insane. 
During the French dominion in Canada and since 
its conquest by the British the insane had been ex- 
clusively in the charge of the nuns, or the religious 
ladies, as they are commonly called. Some mem- 
bers of the Government, speaking to me on the sub- 
ject, I said, that I had never seen the interior of the 
convents, but I thought that their inmates, particu- 
larly the insane, would be benefited by the disuse 
of the confinement, and of such severe treatment. 
Attempts to provide a suitable place for them, hav- 
ing failed, I agreed to take charge of them for a 
period of three years on an understanding that the 
Government would then have a suitable place pro- 
vided for them. 

**I at once leased Darnoe, the property of Col. 
Gugy, and commenced to put it in order. I asked 
Dr. Morrin to join me in the undertaking, but he 
absolutely refused. I then took my friend Dr. 
Fremont as a partner, engaging to stand between 
him and any pecuniary loss should there be any such. 
After the establishment was in good working order, 
Dr. Morrin, who had taken much interest in it, pro- 
posed to join us, and induced Dr. Fremont to divide 
his share with him. This arrangement continued 
until the bonds which united us in the management 
of the institution were severed by their deaths. 
After this brief statement of the origin of the Que- 
bec Lunatic Asylum, and of my peculiar connection 
with it, I cannot do better than give a copy of our 
report to the Government at the end of the three 
years. 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 155 

''The close of the navigation of the year 1846 
was very disastrous to the shipping in the St. Law- 
rence. Two or three of the last ships leaving Quebec 
were met in the Gulf by a heavy easterly snow 
stomi, and were driven and totally wrecked on the 
north shore, where there were neither inhabitants 
nor shelter. There was great loss of life and several 
of the crews were more or less frozen, before being 
able to shelter themselves. Fearing what might oc- 
cur and had actually occurred, the Canadian Govern- 
ment sent down a small steamer to the relief of any 
of the crews who might have escaped. Many were 
found and among them several with frozen extremi- 
ties, who were placed in the Hospital. The number 
and the variety of the operations required brought 
together a strong muster of medical men and stu- 
dents. Three of the operations in particular, named 
after the celebrated French surgeon Chop art, and 
strongly recommended by my old preceptors, Liston 
and Syme, of Edinburgh. After operating on sev- 
eral of the sailors with frozen legs, I was about to 
amputate a thigh, when imagining that the point of 
my catlin was not very fine, I held it up to the light 
and felt it with the point of my finger. I found it 
sharp enough and proceeded with my operations. 
After all were finished, I washed my hands and felt 
a slight tingling on the point of my finger, where I 
had touched the Catlin. I found that I had raised 
the cuticle, without, however, drawing blood. I very 
foolishly sucked the wound and squeezed out of it a 
drop of blood as big as a pin's head. During the 
day the tingling continued without intermission. The 



156 MY FATHEK 'S JOURNAL 

next day it had increased considerably, my finger 
was becoming exquisitely painful, and the absorbents 
in the whole length of the arm were inflamed and in- 
flammation of the mouth and throat had supervened, 
caused, I have no doubt, by the contact of the poison 
when I sucked the wound. These symptoms in- 
creased with severe general spasms and deterioration 
of the whole system, which reduced me to a skeleton, 
and to death's door. I recovered, after some weeks, 
with the loss of my sense of smell, with a great 
loss of my sense of taste, with a shrunken forefinger 
and with the prospect of a shortened life. It is a 
curious fact that the patients on whom I had oper- 
ated, including the one who had furnished the viru- 
lent animal poison, with which I had been inoculated, 
all did well, without appearance of any bad or un- 
toward symptom among them. 

''After my recovery, feeling unable to meet the 
demands of my practice, I took as a partner Dr. 
Racey, who, a graduate of the University of Edin- 
burgh, was of high professional attainments, and of 
most amiable character. During the following win- 
ter and spring the accounts of the ravages of the 
fever in Ireland, the prospects of a very greatly in- 
creased immigration, and in my opinion, the certainty 
of a great amount of cases of typhus, among both the 
cabin and the steerage passengers, induced us to 
establish a private hospital for the treatment of mas- 
ters of vessels and of cabin passengers, who would 
object to go into crowded public hospitals, and who 
would be refused admission into private houses. We 
accordingly leased a large house on the Beauport 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 157 

beach, and awaited the arrival of the shipping. Our 
prognostics were fully verified; the vessels arrived, 
crowded with cases of typhus. The hospitals and the 
temporary sheds, both at Grosse Isle and at Quebec 
were inadequate for the admission of the seamen 
and emigrants, and, as might have been expected, 
hotels and private houses very prudently refused to 
receive cases of virulent contagious fever. 

''Our private hospital was very soon found to be 
too small, and we leased the large and commodious 
dwelling house and premises connected with the old 
breweries at Beauport. In these two private hospi- 
tals we admitted and treated during the summer, one 
hundred and sixty-five cases of typhus fever, of 
whom four died, three of them from the immediate 
effects of the fever, and one from paralysis, after re- 
covering from the danger of the fever. Our fees 
and charges were four dollars per diem; these in- 
cluded all expenses of medical treatment, medicines, 
nursing, etc. Our treatment was extremely simple. 
On admission the patient was placed in a tepid bath, 
in which he was thoroughly shampooed and scrubbed 
with soap and a coarse towel, clean sheets and body 
linen, very frequently changed ; thorough ventilation, 
diluent drinks; a staff of excellent nurses, and oc- 
casionally medicine, were our modes of treatment. 
We were very sparing in the use of drugs, for al- 
though we were not homeopathists, we decidedly pre- 
ferred administering them, when necessary, with a 
teaspoonful instead of a shovel. 

**It would be folly in me to state that in establish- 
ing this hospital, Dr. Racey and I were not mainly 



158 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

influenced by pecuniary views and profits. These 
certainly were our first considerations, but at the 
same time we were desirous to shew practically that 
typhus fever in its worst forms, could be deprived 
of a great part of its malignancy and terrors. We 
fully succeeded in both of these views. 

"At this time the British government, being aware 
of the fearful ravages of the typhus fever among the 
seamen and immigrants on their passage to Canada, 
had sent out Col. Calvert, an old and distinguished 
military officer, who had placed in his charge a 

Monsieur L , a French chemist, the discoverer and 

patentee of a reputed wonderful disinfectant, which 
was said to have the effect of purifying the atmos- 
phere of a fever ward, and doing away with the dan- 
ger of infection from all and sundry diseases of an in- 
fectious or contagious nature. M. L fully tested 

his specific in the wards of the Marine Hospital. It 
certainly had the effect of doing away with the close 
and disagreeable smells which had prevailed in the 
wards and closets, but its active ingredient being a 
solution of nitrate of lead, its inhalation, in my opin- 
ion, had an injurious effect on the patients. For this 
reason I was averse to its use in the Beauport hos- 
pitals. 

"Dr. Racey took ill with typhus fever, but appar- 
ently not of a virulent type. He was most assidu- 
ously attended by Col. Calvert and Mons. L , 

whose solution was very liberally used. It was 
sprinkled on the floor and bedding and cloths wetted 
with it were kept constantly applied to the head and 
chest. It w^as in vain that his friends and I argued 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 159 

against its so liberal use, especially in his own par- 
ticular case, lying, as he did, in a large, airy and well 
ventilated apartment. He was obdurate and would 
listen to no argument or representation. I am con- 
vinced that he used it as a prophylactic and disin- 
fectant, solely with a view to the protection of his 
family from the contagion of the fever. He was to 
me an irreparable loss. He was a most efficient and 
valuable partner. He possessed a thorough knowl- 
edge of medicine, of anatomy and of surgery. He 
was a skilful operating surgeon, and had he not been 
removed by death, would have secured a high posi- 
tion in the profession. His loss to his family and to 
his friends was irreparable. 

**The next, and about the last prominent victim 
of this foul distemper, was Col. Calvert himself. I 
was called to him in the preliminary stage of the 
disease, and as he could not be permitted to remain 
in the Hotel, I had him removed to my own house, 
and placed in the care of a faithful and excellent 
nurse. Col. Calvert was a tall, handsome, military 
looking gentleman, apparently about seventy years 
of age. He was, and evidently had been, a free liver, 
though by no meaus intemperate in his habits. He was 
fully aware of his imminent daager, and met it 
coolly and manfully. He must naturally have pos- 
sessed great presence of mind, even when he was 'in 
extremis,' he gave me an extraordinary proof of this 
quality. In the last stage of the disease, when semi- 
conscious, and apparently quite unconscious, Mons. 

L entered his room, and perceiving his state 

and condition, he sent the nurse dovm stairs, on some 



160 ]\IY FATHEE 'S JOURNAL 

pretence, and then rifled his pockets and his valise. 
This roused up Col. Calvert, who watched the pro- 
ceeding without making any sign, or evincing any 
symptom of consciousness. On my visiting him 
shortly afterwards, he managed to tell me the cir- 
cumstances, and soon lapsed into total insensibility, 
from which he never emerged. In the meanwhile, I 
had sent for L and charged him with the rob- 
bery; he of course stoutly denied it until I was 
fully prepared with proof of the act by a witness 
to the transaction, and if he did not at once restore 
the stolen money, I would expose him to the conse- 
quences. I told him that his theft, if not detected, 
would have exposed my servants to the gravest sus- 
picions, which it would have been impossible for 
them to explain or to remove. Monsieur L re- 
stored the stolen money, and he took my advice to 
visit the United States with as little delay as was 
possible. I told him that I would state the facts to 
the Government and to Col. Calvert's friends, and he 
might explain them as well as he was able. Thus 
ended the episode of the famous disinfecting fluid, 
of which I have never since heard anything. 

**Col. Calvert's death led to the establishment of 
the Mount Hermon Cemetary. He was interred in 
the Protestant burying ground in St. John 's Suburbs, 
This was small and excessively crowded. A great 
part of it had been covered by huge stone slabs, a 
great part was enclosed as private lots, and the re- 
mainder was crowded by the deposit of the Protest- 
ant dead since the Conquest of the Province, and 
notably during the visitations of the Cholera and of 



MY FATHER'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE 161 

the fever. Before removing Col. Calvert's remains 
to the burying ground, I called upon that zealous 
and faithful servant of the church, Mr. John Ricaby, 
anent the grave ; he pointed it out to me, and he told 
me that he had been obliged to disturb the remains 
of two bodies, one of them that of an unknown man, 
and the other, that of a Colonel Impey. He pointed 
out the remains under a small pile of earth. Some 
time afterwards, in conversation -svith Mr. Jeffry 
Hale, I mentioned the disgracefully crowded state 
of the burying ground, and told him what I had seen. 
This conversation led to others, in which that ener- 
getic and sincere friend, Mr. Hale, Mr. C. Wur- 
tele, and some other friends joined, and led to the 
establishment of the Mount Hermon Cemetery. 

** Twenty-five years and more have passed away 
since this memorable fever harvested its victims. A 
few, and only a very few, of the medical men yet 
remain who witnessed its horrors, and the scenes of 
desolation, of misery, of death and of distress, caused 
by its ravages. Although in impaired health at the 
outbreak of the pestilence, and though constantly en- 
gaged in attendance upon the sick, with rarely an 
undisturbed night's rest, I gained health and 
strength. I attribute this in some, if not in a great 
measure, to my habit of going trout fishing twice a 
week. I used to leave town about three o'clock in 
the afternoon, and throwing 'physic to the dogs' I 
drove to the Montmorenci River; I waded deeply, 
and fished with the fiy, for two or three hours; on 
returning, I took tea with my family at Glenalla, and 
then resumed my duties in town. 



162 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

''During the two following years my health and 
strength remained tolerably good, until the summer 
of 1850, when I became troubled with a bronchitic 
cough, which induced me to leave Canada, and to 
spend the following winter season in the South of 
Italy. I accordingly went there, accompanied by 
my friend, Mr. Gilmore, whose health had become 
impaired by too close attention to an extensive busi- 
ness. We spent the winter in the South of Italy, 
principally between Naples and Rome and we re- 
turned to Canada in the Spring. Mr. Gilmore was 
perfectly restored to health. As, however, I had not 
succeeded in getting rid of my cough, I determined 
to retire altogether from the private practice of my 
profession, to abandon my town residence, to spend 
the summer months at Glenalla, and the winter sea- 
sons in a warmer climate than that of Lower Can- 
ada.'' 



CHAPTER VI 

REMINISCENCES OP ONE OF MY FATHER'S OLD STUDENTS 

Edward D. Worthington, subsequently the most 
active and eminent practitioner in the Eastern town- 
ships, studied under my father in the Mountain Hill 
House, He wrote some of his ''Reminiscences of 
Student Life and Practice" for the Detroit Medical 
Age, which were, after his death, collected and pub- 
lished in book form. They are worthy of wider cir- 
culation than they secured, not only by reason of the 
charming conversational style in which they were 
written, but of the details of old student life and by- 
gone medical and surgical practice, of which so few 
descriptions have survived. I have taken the liberty 
of extracting two quotations, one describing my 
father's old house, the house in which I was bom, 
on Mountain Hill, now turned into the Mountain 
Hill Hotel, the other referring to my father's early 
career and skill as a surgeon: 

''When quite a youngster I was indentured be- 
fore a Notary Public to Dr. James D s, a very 

eminent surgeon in the ancient City of Quebec. There 
being no medical school in the Province at the time, 
this was the usual custom. 



164 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

*'The Dr. lived on Mountain Hill in a house now 
used as a Hotel. It was built when the country was 
under the dominion of Fraace, and a remarkable 
house it was— and probably is to this day. It was 
built on the slope of a steep and tortuous hill, and 
built apparently to last forever. The foundations 
had been laid at the foot of the slope, on Notre Dame 
St. near the site of the historic Church of Notre 
Dame des Yietoires, aad the builduig was carried up 
so as to base four stories on Notre Dame St. and two 
and a basement on Mountain Hill: the house thus 
fronting on two streets each having its distinct and 
separate entrance, one shut off completely from the 
other. 

**The first story on Notre Dame Street consisted 
of warehouses and wine vaults; the second was a 
private residence. 

**The Mountain Hill side, on the contrary, was 
not in trades. It was strictly professional. 

"The interior of the place was somewhat as fol- 
lows: Passing through its large drawing-room you 
saw a splendid circular stair-case which led to a 
glass covered cupola, and out on a leaded roof, giv- 
ing a promenade the full length and breadth of the 
building, and commanding a glorious view, of the 
Citadel above, the St. Lawrence and St. Charles riv- 
ers below, the beautiful Island of Orleans, the Falls 
of Montmorenci and the distant Laurentian Moun- 
tains, with the lovely slopes of the beautiful shores 
from Ancienne Lorette to L'Ange Gardien. At the 
foot of this circular stairway stood a huge stuffed 
moose, with immense horns, a trophy of the Doctor's 



REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD STUDENT 165 

skill as a hunter, and nearly every celebrity of the 
day who visited Quebec called and avsked permission 
to see the moose. Admiral Sir George Cockburn,— 
it was he to whom was intrusted the charge of con- 
veying Napoleon to St. Helena— Charles Dickens, 
the Marquis of Waterford, Lord Charles Wellesley, 
Lord Powerscourt, Count D'Orsay, Sir James Mac- 
donnald, the hero of Huguemont, and others too nu- 
merous to mention. But all have now gone to the 
* spirit land.' Where the moose is, I do not know. 

"This stairway was used only in Summer, when 
the family and their visitors wished to enjoy the 
grand view from the roof promenade, and it was 
always a matter of surprise, why the dwellers in 
Notre Dame St. should have been denied this great 
privilege. But it was reserved for one of the ghosts 
of my story to discover, that it had not been always 
thus. In fact a very narrow private stairway had 
been made for their benefit, but this being objected 
to by the * upper crust' it was closed up, and in time 
its very existence was completely forgotten. 

** Before my time the basement referred to had been 
used as a dissecting room, but that had been moved 
to the attic and the dissecting room converted into 
a kitchen, just for the sake of pleasant associations. 
The presiding genius in the kitchen, old Kitty, was 
Irish, a strict Protestant, but when in extreme peril 
not above crossing herself, and appealing to all the 
saints on the calendar. She slept in a cupboard-bed 
in the kitchen, knew what the room had formerly 
been, and was prepared accordingly. Every mouse 
was to her a ghost in disguise. 'Why then Master 



166 MY FATHEE^S JOURNAL 

Edward/ she would say, 'not a night of me life, that 
they don't come and sit across me legs, and dance 
on me chest, and then lift me up, bed and all, up, 
up, untill, my jewel, I think they are going to shut 
me up entirely! When I wakes wid a scream, and 
comes down wid a jump, not for worlds,— no— not 
for me weight in gold, would I stay in this house 
another day but for the Missus, the darlin^' 

** *Now but Kitty, what did you have for sup- 
perT 

** *What did I have for supper, is it? Just a 
glass of beer and a bit of bread and cheese; sorra a 
thing else.' 

** 'Well, Kitty, don't you think it might have been 
the cheese r 

*' 'Arrah then, honey, don't you think I am old 
enough to know the differ between them and cheese? 
The craythurs, they don't ever harm one any way- 
God be good to them, but they do been cut up in 
this room, and they likes to come back to it. ' 

'*! do not wish it to be supposed for one moment, 
that my familiarity with Kitty is any proof that I 
had a *mash' on her. It used to be said in Ireland 
and perhaps elsewhere 'Whatever you do, keep good 
friends with the cook.' Kitty was an old maid, she 
could not help that. Under proper facilities she 
might have been a G-randmother. She was old enough 
but she came from the dear owld sod — not far from 
where I was born, and it was pleasant to hear her 
talk of owld Ireland, and its fairies and its churches, 
and round towers, and blarney stones, and how St. 



REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD STUDENT 167 

Patrick banished the snakes from the island and 
drove them all into the say. 

''The family spent the Summer in the Country, 
so Kitty and I had the house to ourselves a great 
part of the time. I am afraid that in spite of my 
friendship for Kitty, she saw a great many ghosts in 
those days, but she was very forgiving, and thought 
it was all done for her own good. 

''A day of retribution, however, came at last. That 
kind of thing is sure to come sooner or later, upon 
the wicked. I saw a ghost myself and it was in that 
very kitchen. Smoking was a luxury to be indulged 
in cautiously in that house. Lucifer and congress 
matches and phosphorous bottles were unknown. 
Only the old tinder-box with its flint and steel could 
in the absence of a fire or a lighted candle, be relied 
upon to light a cigar. 

"One Sunday morning, knowing to a certainty 
that I was alone in the house, I went down to the 
kitchen for a light. A man sat on a chair in front 
of the coal ( ? ) stove, his feet on its hearth, his 
elbows on his knees and his face in his open palms. 
I had firmly believed the man-servant to be out, but 
there sat someone. I passed behind him and coming 
to his left side, stooped down to open the stove door. 
He did not move, not one foot, so I said in my bland- 
est tones, looking up at the same time, 'Will you 
have the goodness to move your foot? I want to 
open the door.' If I had had my hat on, I would 
have taken it off, I was so awfully civil. No, he 
never moved. I repeated my request, without re- 
sult, so losing patience I pushed the door open 



168 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

forcibly. It opened back to its hinges, but the feet 
never moved. The stove door went right straight 
through them. 

''I stood up quietly with my eyes fixed steadily 
on the figure. I had always heard that that was the 
correct thing to do when attacked by a lion. I had 
seen it recommended in books of Eastern Travel, but 
this man never moved. He was worse than a lion 
and I might be annihilated at any moment. 0, for 
a word from old Kitty. She would have prayed to 
the Saints for me. I had to act for myself, and I 
acted quietly, Oh so quietly. I retired backward 
with my face to the foe— until I reached the foot 
of the stairs; then, I took about 18 steps in three 
bounds. Never before was such time made on that 
stairway. 

*'This was the first ghost, I may as weU call it by 
that name, as by any other, I had ever seen. I had 
not been eating cheese, I had not then even tasted 
beer. I firmly believe to this day that I saw what 
I have described, and as I have described it, and 
further deponent saith not. 

*'If tobacco had never been discovered, or, if par- 
lor matches had been introduced, and I had not 
been obliged to go to the kitchen for a light, would 
that 'poor ghost' have been there? 

**I have recently been asked how it was that we 
had dissecting-rooms in Quebec when we had no 
medical schools. Why is it that we sometimes have 
bread when we have no butter? Every medical man 
in the City who had any practice at all, had a private 



EEMINISCENCES OF AN OLD STUDENT 169 

pupil, some had 3 or 4. The student was bound by 
law to pass an examination, and show a certain 
amount of anatomical knowledge before he could 
legally begin the practice of his profession. By 
'law* he was bound to dissect, by 'law' he might be 
punished for dissecting. Strange inconsistency! 

"Through the kindness of a friend, I have a list 
of all the licentiates, of the Provincial Medical Board 
from the 28th year of the reign of his Majesty 
George III. Heading that list is the name of 'Henry 
Leodal 1788,' whose bust is to be seen to this day 
in the hall of the Montreal General Hospital. Look- 
ing down the list, among the crowd of well remem- 
bered names are those of Joseph Painchaud 1809 
and James Douglas 1826, both of Quebec. The first 
Medical lectures ever given in Quebec of which I 
have any knowledge were given by these gentlemen 
at the Marine and Emigrant Hospital, beginning on 
the first of May, 1837-38-39. 

"The subject of Dr. Painchaud 's lectures was, as 
set forth on the hospital tickets, which I have by me, 
' Sur 1 'art et la Science des Accouchements, ' and ' Sur 
la Theorie et la Pratique de la Medicine.' Those of 
Dr. Douglas were on 'The principles and practices 
of Surgery.' These gentlemen constituted the medi- 
cal staff of the hospital, and the governors or 'com- 
missioners' were Hammond Gowan, Joseph Morrin 
(afterwards founder of Morrin College) and Joseph 
Parent. Dr. Painchaud lived opposite the Artillery 
Barracks, Palace Gate. He used to do most of his 
visiting in the city on horseback and I have a re- 
membrance of only one horse. It was at least 16 



170 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

hands liigli, bay, with a short stub of a tail, which, 
when the horse was in motion, seemed to act as a 
propeller, it went round like an 'Archimedes screw/ 
The horse had evidently been a Military Charger. 
It was so thoroughly trained. It has often been a 
great puzzle to me how the Doetor got on the out- 
side of such a high horse, but the horse was equal to 
the occasion. The Doctor was not above the average 
height and inclined to be stout. He had a kindly 
smiling face, and was resplendent in waistcoats, 
worn almost as loose as a blouse— of purple or bright 
scarlet silk, and most exquisitely got up shirt frills. 
Wellington boots he wore with trousers strapped 
tightly down, silver spurs and chains, and in his 
'fob' he carried a heavy bunch of seals. When en- 
tering a house he drew the rein over the back of the 
saddle and allowed the horse to roam at his own 
sweet will. When he came out he called or blew a 
small whistle, the horse marched up, got his lump 
of sugar, wheeled his left side to the sidewalk for 
the Doctor to mount, and off he went prancing, to 
the great admiration of the small boys. Dr. Pain- 
chaud had for many years the largest French-Cana- 
dian practice in Quebec. 

"Dr. Douglas lived on Mountain Hill in what is 
now known as the MountaiQ Hill House. He was 
educated in Edinburgh and London. He was the 
most brilliant operator I ever saw— and I have seen 
some good men in my time here and in the old coun- 
try. It was not only that he did his work quickly, 
but he did it well, and his operations were simply 
splendid. I remember a poor fellow in the Marine 



KEMINISCENCES OF AN OLD STUDENT 171 

and Emigrant Hospital at Quebec, who from frost 
bite was obliged to have both legs removed just above 
the knee. It was decided to have the double event 
come off at the same time, two legs— two operations 
with the object of saving the patient as much as 
possible. From the instant the point of the knife 
entered, till the leg was on the floor was one minute 
and forty-two seconds, in Douglas' case. The vessels 
were tied and the wound dressed inside of three 
minutes. The other amputation was not quite fin- 
ished in half an hour, when some of us had to leave. 
The case did well. No anesthetic was known in those 
days. It was sheer pluck on the side of both pa- 
tient and doctor.'* 

Dr. Worthington mentions my father's relation 
to, and my father in his autobiography refers to, his 
connection with the Marine and Emigrant Hospital, 
but omits the incidents which preceded his resigna- 
tion as one of the visiting physicians. 

The terrible typhus season of 1847-48 created dis- 
organization in the establishment. The visiting 
physician could only complain to the Commissioners, 
and, if they did not interfere, report to the Govern- 
ment. This they did, but the complaints were un- 
heeded till 1851-52, when Dr. Neilson and Dr. Mac- 
donnell were appointed to investigate the affairs of 
the hospital. 

From the correspondence elicited by this investi- 
gation I take the following extracts from copies of 
my father's letters to the Provincial Secretary. 

''When Dr. Painchaud and I were appointed, we 
found the hospital in a state of chaos, and the scene 



172 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

of drunkenness, licentiousness and open robbery. — 
Through our exertions and the support of the Com- 
missioners it was placed, as Drs. N. & M. allow, in 
a high position as an asylum for the sick and maimed, 
and a reputable position as a school of Practical 
Surgery and Medicine.— It was moreover moral, ab- 
stemious and well conducted. "What was, however, 
of far more importance in a Hospital, the aver- 
age of mortality was less than 3%, and it must be 
borne in mind that temperance societies then hardly 
existed, and that the number of fractures and grave 
injuries exceeded by three hundred per cent the 
number given in the Commissioner's tables as ad- 
mitted during the last year." 



Dr. Fremont always assisted him in operating, 
though Dr. Fremont was not one of the visiting sur- 
geons. One of the witnesses criticized him because— 
as was claimed— he *' slighted and insulted the whole 
staff of visiting physicians by bringing Dr. Fremont, 
not connected with the Hospital, to assist at opera- 
tions." He replied: *'It is perfectly true that not 
* sometimes,' but always I got Dr. Fremont to assist 
me in operations as well in Hospital as in private 
practice. He has invariably assisted me for the last 
sixteen or seventeen years. I never had other as- 
sistance than his. I never use a tourniquet, and in 
my operations felt unbounded reliance that with his 
co-operation no unnecessary loss of blood would oc- 
cur. He knew my ways and mode of operating,— 
I had no directions to give; there was no noise, con- 
fusion or loss of time. I have reason, under God, 



REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD STUDENT 173 

to attribute much of my success in surgical opera- 
tions to Dr. Fremont's assistance. In one case, in 
Hospital, but for his promptitude, the patient would 
have died on the table. There was no time to give 
directions or explanations; thirty seconds loss of 
time would have made with the patient all the dif- 
ference between time and eternity. Had I been aware 
that on the appointment of the six visiting physicians 
I would have been deprived of the assistance of Dr. 
F., I would at once have placed my commission at 
His Excellency's disposal. My colleagues knew that 
Dr. F. always had assisted me before their appoint- 
ment, and only now I hear complaints that he has 
continued to do so since. ' ' 

The investigation revealed considerable personal 
feeling against him by some of his colleagues in the 
profession. As he had given up active practice he 
retained the position of a visiting physician only long 
enough to relieve himself of the imputation of having 
retired under fire. 

It was not safe to engage in a contest of wits 
with my father. 

About 1844 there was started in Quebec one of those 
pestilential blackmailing sheets with which every 
community is infested. Its name defined its inten- 
tion— T/te Mechanical Spy. It picked up or manu- 
factured scandals, put them in print, sent the proofs to 
the victims, and was generally paid for suppressing 
them. One of my father's students at that time was 
a clever lad, but somewhat unruly. He was a fa- 



174 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

vourite, nevertheless. On the first occasion on which 
my father took me, a very little boy, to fish with 
him on the Montmorency he took David also. I dis- 
tinctly recollect that early in the afternoon the lad 
said he was going down to a deep hole to take a 
swim. Sunset approached, my father put up his 
tackle, but David did not appear. My father 
shouted and searched along the river and in the 
woods till dark, and on our return sent out our 
servants to scour the forest. But David was not 
found. The following afternoon my father returned, 
and in the river discovered the body, and not 
very far distant the rod with a large fish dead on 
the hook. He had evidently hooked a large fish, and, 
following my father's tactics of trying to kill him in 
the rapids, had lost his footing. Next week the 
Mechanical Spy came out with the advice to parents 
who have unruly children to apprentice them to 
medical men, as they are adepts in the art of killing, 
hinting likewise that my father had personal motives 
for ridding himself of his student, and promising 
further particulars in a subsequent number. My 
father professed supreme indifference and refused 
to pay; but instead he hired a literary man of some- 
what irregular habits to call on the shoemaker who was 
supposed to be editor and proprietor of the Spy. The 
agent expressed his unbounded admiration of the mo- 
tives and matter of the Spy, but pointed out some of its 
literary defects and offered to act as sub-editor on 
very reasonable terms. The shoemaker editor took 
the bait and the whole manuscript contents of the edito- 
rial office were transferred to my father's consulting 



REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD STUDENT 175 

room. Even lie was surprised at the respectable 
position of many of the men who were the regular 
purveyors of scandal. One was a lawyer of very good 
standing at the bar, another a young man being edu- 
cated for the church. Nothing but the spirit of mal- 
ice and mischief-making instigated most of the con- 
tributions. No other number of the Mechanical Spy 
appeared, and the denouement of ''The medical ap- 
prentice and the Doctor" was never printed. On the 
other hand the editor and several of his contributors 
left town hastily and others received a hint which ever 
afterward prevented them indulging in such amuse- 
ments. 

He was strongly opposed to the use of alcohol, even 
in beer, for his insane patients, and what he would 
not allow himself as an article of food, he punished 
by dismissal any attendant for indiscreet indulgence 
in. A neighbor who had a lease of a piece of land 
which had been bought for the use of the asylum, 
knowing the stringency of the rules against drink- 
ing, attempted to sell his lease dearly by establish- 
ing a tavern at the asylum gates. The Dunkin act 
was then a law, though never enforced, requiring 
every tavern to close between 8 P. M. on Saturday 
and till 6 A, M. on Monday. My father applied it 
most effectually. He employed a dozen reliable 
witnesses, each to be used in a separate suit, to visit 
the tavern in the proscribed hours on Sunday. 
Early in the following week complaint was made and 
suit commenced. The tavern-keeper and his sons 
srwore the first witnesses out of court, but the judge 
warned him to be prudent in the future. Another 



176 MY FATHER'S JOUENAL 

case was commenced the same day and judgment went 
against the tavern. A third was immediately in- 
stituted, and this was held in terrorem over the 
head of the unfortunate publican. Of course, he 
capitulated, as Sunday was the only day on which 
he could hope to do a thriving business. One of the 
articles of capitulation was that his crop should be 
bought at a valuation. He appointed his arbiter, a 
witty Irish farmer. My father named his, a staid 
old English farmer, a sincerely pious though very 
simple Methodist. The notarial deed prescribed the 
appointment of an umpire in case of difference. A 
wide difference of valuation, of course, existed; but 
the Irishman naively suggested that there was a 
speedy way of settling the question, one that was 
warranted by the authority of Holy Writ, viz., cast- 
ing lots. His arguments, fortified by texts, were 
irresistible, and Mr. May, for the first time in his 
life, tossed a penny. The penny decided against him 
and he signed the Irishman's award. We read it 
with utter amazement, and before obeying it learnt 
from our literal friend how such an extraordinary 
figure had been arrived at. After hearing we did not, 
of course, obey the award. 

He once lodged a complaint against a carter who 
was maltreating his horse. When the case came up 
in court he was summoned as the principal witness. 
The plaintiff's lawyer, a pert young practitioner, 
put the usual questions. After eliciting the fact, 
which every one knew, that the witness was a doc- 
tor, he imprudently asked, '*Are you a horse doc- 



REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD STUDENT 177 

tor?" **Yes," was the prompt reply, "and an ass 
doctor— at your service." 

MEDICAL LECTURES 

To the Chronicle. 

In a recent number of the Chronicle Sir James LeMoine 
furnishes extracts from ' ' Keminiscences of Student Life and 
Practice,'* by the late Dr. Worthington, of Sherbrooke, who 
says: ''The first medical lectures ever given in Quebec, of 
which I have any knowledge, were given at the Marine and 
Emigrant Hospital, beginning on the 1st of May, 1837.'' 

On the 31st of August, 1826, the medical profession of this 
city and neighborhood entertained their countryman and con- 
frere. Dr. Pierre de Salles Laterriere, vrith a dinner at Mail- 
hot's Hotel, before his return to England. In his address he 
says: ''The rapid improvements which have but lately taken 
place in the medical profession in Canada, . . . ought to im- 
press on the public, and particularly on our Legislature, the 
indispensible necessity of some medical school being established 
among us, where the student might acquire in his native 
country the knowledge which is the basis of medical science." 

This quotation proves that in Quebec medicine was not 
taught at that time, though at Montreal four medical gentle- 
men, viz.: Drs. Caldwell, Eobertson, Stephenson and Holmes, 
had, since a few years, been engaged in giving medical lessons 
with great success. In the Journal de Medicine, January, 
1827, vol. II, page 117, I read: "The lectures (in medicine) 
which are now delivering in the presence of the most distin- 
guished characters, both in and out of the profession, are a 
striking and gratifying evidence of the liberal dispositions of 
the medical practitioners in this city. 

"There are at present in Quebec two gentlemen deliver- 
ing lectures on chemistry and one on anatomy and physiology. 
Drs. F. Blanchet and Douglas are lecturing at the Emigrant 
Hospital and S. J. Whitelaw at the old Theatre." (Where 
that was I would like to know.) 



178 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

Dr. Blanchet was a member of tlie Legislature and had 
tlie credit of being the first Canadian author, although Dr. 
Pierre de Salles Laterriere had published at Boston, in 1789, 
a thesis, of which 500 copies were printed. (Gagnon Bib- 
liograph, p. 273.) 

Dr. Whitelaw was said to have superior merits as a lec- 
turer. 

Of Douglas the editor of the Journal de Medicine says: 
**We do not hesitate to pronounce his introductory lecture the 
most elaborate history of comparative anatomy which we have 
ever heard or read.'' 

This Journal de Medicine was, I believe, the first medical 
journal published in Canada. It was printed at Quebec by 
Francois Lemaitre, at No. 3 Ste. Famille street during 1826, 
and by the same at No. 4 Notre Dame street, market square, 
Lower Town, in 1827. It was edited and published by Xavier 
Tessier, M. D. 

It lasted only two years. 

MICHAEL JOS. AHERN. 

Quebec, August 31, 1900. 



CHAPTER VII 



My father's professional life was made doubly- 
arduous by the hard and fast rules he laid down for 
himself. His health consequently broke down pre- 
maturely. The breakfast hour was six o'clock, and 
punctuality was rigidly enforced. Though he may 
have been up nearly all night with a patient, he was 
at the table at the fatal hour— two hours before day- 
light in winter time. And the most honoured guest 
was made to feel uncomfortable if he were late. 
When in 1849 he decided to give up practice he de- 
termined to visit Italy, and in order to prepare him- 
self he engaged an Italian to teach him colloquial 
Italian. To avoid infringing on his working hours 
he made poor Simeon trudge through the snow to 
give him his daily lesson at 5 A. M., an hour before 
the hateful breakfast. He never slept in his coun- 
try house, out of reach of his patients, and he never 
hesitated to rise from a meal in answer to a pa- 
tient's call. As a medical man he must have known 
that such a strain on mind and body must inevitably 
lead to a breakdown. But, having made these laws 
for himself and his household, he and we had to 



180 MY FATHER 'S JOURNAL 

live up to them. The six o'clock breakfast was en- 
forced till he left Quebec and lived with me in 
Phoenixville, Pa., in 1875. But he then fell into a 
saner and more reasonable schedule of hours for meals 
and rest without a murmur or any reluctance. 

For a short time before retiring from practice he 
associated with himself Dr. Rowand, but the part- 
nership was not congenial to either party. He was 
not easily matched in harness, and therefore he may 
have been convinced that it would be wiser to throw 
off entirely the toil of professional life than to share 
it with another. He had just taken a ten-year con- 
tract, in association with Dr. Morrin and Dr. Fre- 
mont, to care for the provincial insane, and had 
erected suitable buildings on a property adjacent to 
his country house on the Beauport Road. He was 
thus assured of some congenial work. But from 
1851 till 1865-66 he spent nine winters abroad, visit- 
ing Egypt six times and Palestine thrice. 

On the second trip abroad I, a boy of fifteen, ac- 
companied him. After spending a few days in 
Darlington with his sister, Mrs. Dale, who was car- 
ing for their old father, we went to Egypt for a 
fortnight and passed the rest of the winter in Italy. 
It was my father's first draught of Nile water and 
inhalation of Egypt's dry, bracing air. He got a 
slight foretaste of the delightful, lazy methods of 
travel in the days before railroads and Cook steam- 
boats, and of the intoxicating blending of the old and 
new in architecture, government and habits of the 
people, which Egypt affords beyond any other coun- 
try even of the Old World. On this first trip we 



1 



ILL-HEALTH AND TRAVELS 181 

met Mr. Betts, a railroad contractor, who was build- 
ing the first link in the railroad from Alexandria to 
Cape Town— that from Alexandria to Cairo. *'Cape 
Town to Cairo'* is a more euphonious alliteration, 
but Cape Town to Alexandria will be geographically 
more correct. He introduced us to Mariette Bey, 
who had just discovered and unearthed the wonder- 
ful catacombs of the Bull Apis at Sakkara. We 
spent a delightful day with M. Mariette, and under 
his guidance saw the Apis Catacombs and the in- 
teresting Ibis mummy pits, which he also recently 
found and which are wisely now closed to the public. 
Time did not permit of our slowly ascending to the 
Cataract by dahabia, but my father decided that his 
next winter abroad should be spent on the Nile. 

Consequently in 1854-55 the whole family mi- 
grated with him to Egypt — my mother, brother, 
myself and our cousin, Miss Dale. We ascended to 
the First Cataract, and on our return made a flying 
trip to Palestine, by boat to Jaffa and on horseback 
from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Neither roads nor wheeled 
vehicles were then known in the Holy Land. 
The visit to Jerusalem was made notable by two 
events less commonplace than usually fall to the lot 
of casual travelers. We were among the first visit- 
ors to enter the quarries of Underground Jerusalem, 
which had just been accidentally discovered; and 
my father, mother and cousin were fortunately 
allowed to join the first party of Christians who 
ever, by permission, crossed the Platform and entered 
the Mosque of Omar. The first account of the quar- 



182 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

ries was published in the following letter from my 
father to the "Athenaeum" of May 3, 1856: 



'*The following notes on ancient quarries in Jeru- 
salem have been placed at the service of our readers 
through a friend. They were made by a Scotch 
gentleman, Mr. Douglas: 

** During a visit to Jerusalem in the spring of 
1855 I became acquainted with a very intelligent 
Hebrew, who informed me that there were extensive 
quarries beneath the city, and that there was un- 
doubted evidence that from these quarries the stones 
employed in the building and rebuilding of the Tem- 
ple were obtained. He told me that these excava- 
tions were accessible through a small opening under 
the north wall of the city,— that he had descended 
some time before with two English gentlemen, and 
had spent with them several hours in exploring the 
excavations, which were sufficiently extensive to 
have furnished stones enough, not only for the con- 
struction of this Temple, but for the whole of Jeru- 
salem, the walls included. He expressed his readi- 
ness to accompany me, but proposed to go after dark, 
as he feared the Turkish guards might fire upon or 
maltreat us, if they detected us. As my party com- 
prised two ladies and my two sons, all equally de- 
sirous with myself to see these excavations,— as the 
gates of the city were closed at sunset,— and as there 
were no houses outside the walls,— I would not listen 
to the proposal to spend the night in the open air, 
unless, upon trial, I found we could do no better. 



ILL-HEALTH AND TRAVELS 183 

We, accordingly, went to examine the situation and 
size of the opening. We found it about 150 yards 
to the eastward of the Damascus Gate. It seemed 
like the burrow of some wild animal; there was no 
rubbish above the opening, but some tall grass and 
weeds. Persons entering might be observed by the 
guards; but this did not seem very likely, as the sol- 
diers generally remained within the gate, and only 
very rarely one sauntered outside. We, accordingly, 
decided to make the attempt by daylight, fully sat- 
isfied that, even if observed, we should be only rudely 
driven away. The next morning, therefore, we left 
the city as soon as the gates were opened. One of 
the party got into the hole, but returned, saying, that 
it would be necessary to get in feet foremost, as there 
was a perpendicular descent of six or seven feet at 
the inner opening. He went back again with the 
lights; I followed. The ladies were got through with 
considerable difficulty. When fairly inside, we 
found ourselves in an immense vault, and standing 
upon the top of a pile which was very evidently 
formed by the accumulation of the minute particles 
from the final dressings of the blocks of stone. On 
descending this pile, we entered, through a large 
arch, into another vault, equally vast, and separated 
from the first by enormous pillars. This vault, or 
quarry, led, by a gradual descent, into another and 
another, each separated from the other by massive 
stony partitions, which had been left to give addi- 
tional strength to the vaulted roofs. In some of the 
quarries the blocks of stone which had been quarried 
out lay partly dressed; in some the blocks were stiU 



184 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

attached to the rock; in some the workmen had just 
commenced chiselling; and in some the architect's 
line was distinct on the smooth face of the wall of 
the quarry. The mode in which the blocks were got 
out was similar to that used by the ancient Egyp- 
tians, as seen in the sandstone quarries at Hagar Til- 
silis and in the granite quarries at Syene. The arch- 
itect first drew the outline of the blocks on the face 
of the quarry; the workmen then chiselled them out 
in their whole thickness, separating them entirely 
from each other, and leaving them attached by their 
barks only to the solid wall. They were then de- 
tached by cutting a passage behind them, which, 
whilst it separated the blocks, left them roughly 
dressed, and left the wall prepared for further op- 
erations. We remarked the similarity between the 
stones chiselled out in these quarries and the few 
blocks of stone built into the south-east corner of the 
wall of Jerusalem, which are so remarkable for their 
size, their weather-worn appearance, and the peculiar 
ornamentation of their edges. We spent between two 
and three hours in these quarries. Our examinations 
were, however, chiefly on the side towards^ the Val- 
ley of Jehoshaphat. Our guide stated, that more to 
the westward was a quarry of the peculiar reddish 
marble so commonly used as pavement in the streets 
of Jerusalem. From the place where we entered the 
descent was gradual; between some of the quarries, 
however, there were broad flights of steps, cut out 
of the solid rock. I had no means of judging of the 
distance between the roofs of the vaults and the 
streets of the city, except that from the descent the 



ILL-HEALTH AND TRAVELS 185 

thickness must be enormous. The size and extent 
of these excavations fully bore out the opinion that 
they had yielded stones enough to build not only the 
Temple, but the whole of Jerusalem. 

''The situation of these quarries— the mode by 
which the stones were got out— and the evidence 
that the stones were fully prepared and dressed be- 
fore being removed, may possibly throw light upon 
the verses of Scripture in which it is said— 2 Chron- 
icles, ii. 18— 'And he (Solomon) set three-score and 
ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and 
fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountains, 
and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set 
the people a work.' And again— 1 Kings, vi. 7— 
*And the house, when it was in building, was built 
of stone made ready before it was brought thither: 
so that there was neither hammer nor ax nor any 
tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in 
building. * 

* ' In one of the quarries there was a spring of water. 
A recess in the rock and a shallow trough had been 
cut for its reception. The water was soft and clear, 
but somewhat unpleasant to the taste. The expendi- 
ture of our candles hastened our departure. We got 
out as we got in, unobserved. I had not another 
opportunity of visiting these quarries ; but left Jeru- 
salem in hopes that some one more enterprising and 
more able would explore and give a more detailed 
and accurate account of these excavations, which to 
me seemed so abounding in interest." 

The editor remarks: "Such is the communication 
made to us from the reports of Mr. Douglas. Some 



186 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

of our Correspondents at Jerusalem may possibly be 
able to tell us more about these interesting quarries.*' 

On the day of tbe visit to the Mosque of Omar 
my brothers and I had ridden out to the Pools of 
Solomon. The rest of the party went to the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre to witness one of the great 
functions of Holy Week, the Miracle of the Greek 
Fire. 

"After the performance of the Ceremony," my 
father says, "and while conversing with the Secre- 
tary to the French Consulate, he informed me, that 
in an hour's time, a most unheard of visit was to be 
made to the Temple area, by the Duke of Brabant, 
the heir to the throne of Belgium, who, when in 
Constantinople had received from the Sultan an or- 
der on the Pacha to be admitted into the Temple 
Area. I expressed a doubt, observing, that the 
Mosque of Omar, built on the site of the Temple 
of Solomon, was considered by the Moslems so holy, 
that Jews and Christians had repeatedly been put to 
death, for merely looking thro' the gates. The Sec- 
retary replied, that the Sultan's order on the Pacha 
was imperative; that His Highness the Duke, with 
his Confessor the Bishop, and the French Consul 
were to be admitted into the Temple precincts at 
four o'clock. 

"I at once determined, if it was possible, to go too, 
and hastening to the Hotel, I placed the Ladies at 
the outer gate, with strict injunctions not to leave, 
until my return. 

"I went to the French Consul, and requested to 
be allowed to accompany the Duke's party, but I was 



ILL-HEALTH AND TRAVELS 187 

politely, but flatly refused. I then applied to Mr. 
Finn, the English Consul, he however would hardly 
listen to me, he said that if the visit was known, 
there would be an immediate rising of a bigoted 
populace, and probably a loss of life. 

"I hastened back to the Hotel, and took the La- 
dies with me to the Pacha's palace, where leaving 
them at the outer gate, I made my way to the Divan, 
where the Pacha was seated smoking, with two dis- 
tinguished looking Arabs. There was no interpreter 
on the spot at the moment, and my knowledge of 
Arabic was homeopathic; the Pacha however had a 
few words of Italian, of which he semed proud to 
make a display to his visitors. 

**I stated my desire to be permitted to enter the 
Temple Area with two Ladies, the Pacha exclaimed, 
^Ladies— Ladies— too late— just going.' I said that 
the ladies were below; he exclaimed, 'Ladies in my 
house, I would like to see them.' I ran down, and 
told them that the Pacha wished to be introduced 
to them, and that they had only to make a pro- 
found curtsey, on being presented. The ceremony 
had barely been gone thro', when the Duke and his 
party were announced, the Pacha rose to meet and at 
once accompanied them and us into the Temple 
grounds, thro' a door which entered from the Court 
of his Palace. We had barely got in, when we were 
saluted by an extraordinary looking figure, who leapt, 
— threw his arms over his head, and screamed with 
all his might and main. He was immediately seized 
by the Attendants,— pinioned,— part of his dress was 
thrust into his mouth,— and he was hurried out of 



188 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

sight. We were informed that the Dervishes who 
reside in and about the Mosque of Omar, had been 
shut up to avoid disturbance, and, that the one just 
hurried off, had got out, or been overlooked. 

''The stone platform on which Solomon built his 
temple, and on which the Mosque of Omar now 
stands, is of very considerable size, and covers an 
Area of thirty five Acres within the enclosure. It is 
perfectly level, and has been highly polished by the 
sandaled and by the bare feet of the countless wor- 
shippers, during three thousands of years. In fact, 
I know of no place whose peculiar sanctity has been 
so acknowledged by peoples so diverse in origin, and 
in religious belief. Jews,— Christians and Mussel- 
mans have vied with each other in their veneration 
for this Holy spot. 

*'"We were hurried through this hallowed spot, 
in what appeared to me to be unseemly haste, and 
were dismissed thro' a postern gate, which opened 
in the immediate vicinity of the Jews quarter of the 
City." 

The only distant excursion made was to the Jordan 
and the Dead Sea. 

On our way back, between Jericho and Bethany 
we witnessed an incident very illustrative of the 
permanence of habit and mode of life in the East. 
My father thus tells the story: 

'*We had bathed in the sacred river, on the banks 
from which our Redeemer had been baptized by John, 
and we were then treading in his very footsteps 
toward Jerusalem, when we witnessed a scene such 
as suggested to him one of his parables, fraught with 



ILL-HEALTH AND TRAVELS 189 

lessons as full of meaning to ourselves as to the self- 
righteous Jew. 

''Soon after passing the site of Jericho we found, 
lying on the roadside an Arab, who was grievously 
wounded and helpless. He had been attacked by the 
band of prowling Bedouins near whom we had en- 
camped the previous night. He was literally "a 
wayfaring man who had fallen among thieves.'* It 
was beautiful to witness the conduct of our Sheik, 
who, in his own estimation, and in that of his band, 
was the greatest man of our party. He got off his 
superb horse, and assisted by my sons and me, placed 
the wounded and helpless Arab upon it; then, plac- 
ing one of his band on each side, to sustain the 
wounded man on the sadde, he himself, taking the 
bridle in his hand, led the horse until we came to 
an habitation where he could be cared for. These 
circumstances we witnessed on the roadside between 
Jericho and Jerusalem on the 9th day of April, 1855. 

''Anno Domini 32 St. Luke wrote. Chap. 10, verses 
30 to 35 inclusive, 'And Jesus answering said: 

" '30. A certain man went down from Jerusalem 
to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped 
him of his raiment and wounded him, and departed, 
leaving him half dead. 

" '31. And by chance there came down a cer- 
tain Priest that way, and when he saw him he passed 
by on the other side. 

" '32. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the 
place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the 
other side. 



190 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

** *33. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, 
came where he was, and when he saw him, he had 
compassion upon him. 

** *34. And went to him, and bound up his 
wounds, pouring oil and wine, and set him on his 
own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care 
of him. 

** *35. And on the morrow, when he departed he 
took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and 
said unto him; Take care of him, and whatsoever 
thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay 
thee.' 

**The circumstances and the localities are precisely 
similar, and is the attitude of Christians to Mohame- 
dans very different from that of the Jew to the 
Samaritan?" 



Though my father had retired from practice his 
hand as a surgical instrument had not lost its cun- 
ning, nor had he forfeited by disuse or age that 
keen instinct which enabled him to diagnose disease 
by facial expression or such secondary signs. On the 
Nile he had acquired a reputation as a great hakim 
or physician. Once when we were just casting off 
from Luxor an Arab hurried on board from a boat 
which had come up the river. He besought my father 
to go and see his master. He found a magnificent old 
fellow returning to the interior. He was one of 
those objectionable Arab traders who dealt in human 
beings as well as amber beads, but he was suffering 
from an acute attack of pneumonia. "We delayed our 



ILL-HEALTH AND TRAVELS 191 

departure for a week till the patient was out of 
danger. In his gratitude he offered to send my 
father a hippopotamus. It was not the first time in 
his life my father refused a fee. 



CHAPTER VIII 

HE BECOMES INTERESTED IN THE CARE OF THE INSANE 
AND IN THE QUEBEC LUNATIC ASYLUM 

As early as 1824 a special committee was appointed 
to report on the provision made for the insane in the 
Province of Quebec. The unfortunates were then 
cared for in three hospitals— that of the Grey Nuns, 
the Hospital General of Quebec ; in the Hospital Gen- 
eral in Montreal, conducted by the nuns of the same 
order; and the hospital of the Ursulines in Three 
Rivers. A few were confined in the gaols. The Com- 
mittee reported that in the General Hospital of Que- 
bec there were 18 cells, whose dimensions were 
8'x7i/2'x8' high, and six more cells 9'x9'x9' for less 
violent patients. The cells in the Montreal General 
Hospital were 8'x6'3''x7a0'' high. The six cells of 
the Ursuline Hospital at Three Rivers were 8'x6''x8'. 
The evidence was to the effect that the cells were oc- 
cupied day and night, the patients seldom leaving 
them except once in eight days when their cells were 
cleaned out and their clothes changed. The diet was 
that of the Hospital patients. Light was admitted 
through a small window or a bull's eye in each cell 
and the only ventilation was through a grilled open- 



194 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

ing above the door, by wbicli also heat entered from 
a corridor. An open trough in each cell leading into 
a common drain carried off the excreta. The com- 
mittee exonerates the religious ladies from all blame, 
as they were acting up to their light, and each hos- 
pital was under the charge of an eminent medical 
man. Dr. Holmes being the attendant of the Quebec 
General Hospital. The Reverend Lady Superior 
of the Three Rivers establishment when asked the 
question as to whether the treatment and accommo- 
dations were calculated to assist in the cure of the 
patients, sincerely answered that "The insane re- 
ceive the treatment proper for their cure, and their 
accommodation is such that they can be treated in a 
manner to relieve their suffering, which is done with 
the tenderest care.'' This opinion is expressed just 
after the Lady Superior testified that the insane are 
immured day and night in the same cell, but that one 
of their four patients is sane enough to be permitted 
to take the air and some exercise for a few days each 
month. 

The number of insane in the Province was not 
great. The Committee found that since 1800, 66 
male and 45 female patients were confined as insane 
in the Quebec General Hospital, and in the General 
Hospital of Montreal 84 patients— "and that the cells 
appropriated to the insane of the Province do not 
permit of properly applying either moral or medical 
treatment for care of the insane," and that the sum 
paid for their support and treatment would have 
built a well equipped asylum "which would have 



CARE OF THE INSANE 195 

done honor to the humanity and philanthropy of the 
Country. ' ' 

The report was printed but never acted upon, and 
this inhuman treatment continued to be practised till 
1845, when my father and two partners made a con- 
tract to care for the insane. Since then they have 
received proper care, but the vicious system of farm- 
ing out has been perpetuated in the Province of 
Quebec. 

Thus it came about that my father for twenty 
years was devoted heart and soul to this branch of 
medical science. He has told in his autobiographical 
sketch of his association with Dr. Morrin and Dr. 
Fremont in this enterprise. They were earnest and 
congenial fellow-workers till Dr. Morrin 's death. My 
father's share was originally one-half, and that of 
each of the others one-quarter, in the cost and profits 
of the enterprise. On Dr. Morrin 's death in 1861 
Dr. Fremont bought his share. He and my father 
were therefore equal partners till 1863, when Dr. 
Fremont died. Dr. Landry, a French Canadian med- 
ical man, agreeable to my father and the govern- 
ment, purchased half of Dr. Fremont's interest in 
the Asylum and the contract. 

Some of the incidents connected with my father's 
ownership and disposal of his interest were matters 
of public notoriety— others of them were not so well 
known. 

The system of ' ' farming out ' ' the insane had always 
existed, and in 1845 was perpetuated through an 
urgent popular call for immediate action. The first 
report published by the contractor after the applica- 



196 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

tion of modern methods to the care of the insane, gives 
interesting details of the old methods of treating the 
patients, and of the amelioration of their condition 
secured by hastily improvised provisions. These early 
reports are very rare and portions of them are worthy 
of reprinting as public documents. Though the tempor- 
ary asylum was opened in 1845, the first published re- 
port was not issued till 1849. It was addressed to the 
Commissioners of the Lower Canada Lunatic Asylum. 

GENTLEMEN,— 

We, the Managers of the Temporary Lunatic Asylum, at 
Beauport, beg leave very respectfully to lay before you the 
following Report, having reference to the state and condi- 
tion of the patients entrusted to our care by the Government, 
and to the mode in which they have been treated during the 
past three years. 

Towards the close of the last century, an order in Coun- 
cil was passed, authorizing an appropriation for the main- 
tenance of insane persons in the Province of Lower Canada. 
These insane persons were intrusted to the care of certain 
religious communities in the respective districts of Montreal, 
Quebec, and Three Rivers; the Government paying a yearly 
sum of about £32 10s. for the support of each patient. 

[The sum allowed by Government for the support 
of each patient was one shilling and eight pence per 
diem : there were besides occasional appropriations for 
the repairs of the building and fence.] 

As in similar institutions in Europe, at this period, insane 
persons were confined merely as unmanageable, or as dan- 
gerous to the community, or to themselves. No measures 
were adopted for their restoration to reason. They were shut 
up in separate cells, were debarred intercourse with the world 
and with each other, were left to brood over their disordered 
fancies, until they became maniacal, tore their clothes, became 
filthy in their habits, and from a well known law of nature, 



CARE OF THE INSANE 107 

that the faculties become dormant for want of exercise, 
became imbecile or idiotic. Occasionally a patient was re- 
moved by his friends; rarely was one discharged restored to 
reason. Over the portals of these receptacles might, with 
truth, have been engraved the well-known lines of Dante: 
"0 vol che intrate, lasciate la speranza." 

Strong representations were made from time to time by 
different Grand Juries, of the general unfitness of these recep- 
tacles, of their filthy condition, of the damp and want of 
ventilation of the cells, and of the general treatment of the 
unfortunate inmates. 

In justice to the religious ladies, it must be said, that they 
themselves were desirous to be relieved from their charge, 
and repeatedly urged the unfitness of the place of confinement 
and the necessity of better means of accommodation for the 
patients under their care. 

In 1843, Sir C. Metcalfe assumed the Government of the 
Canadas, and in his first speech at the opening of the House, 
urged the necessity of an improved system of treatment for 
the insane. During the session notice was given, by the Hon. 
T. C. Aylwin, of his intention to bring in a Bill to provide 
for the care and treatment of the insane, but owing to the 
press of other business, the session passed over without any 
action being taken in the matter. 

During the subsequent recess, the Grovernor General caused 
the different places in which the insane were confined, to be 
visited, and estimates formed of the expense of their removal 
to the country, and of the cost of their care, maintenance, and 
medical treatment. 

At the subsequent meeting of the Legislature, the Governor 
General again brought the subject of Asylums for the insane 
before the House, but the session was extremely short, and 
passed over without any further reference being made to 
the matter. 

During the summer of 1845, His Excellency having made 
an agreement with the undersigned, directed the insane per- 
sons then confined in the Districts of Quebec and Three Rivers 
to be removed to a place fitted up for their temporary recep- 
tion at Beauport in the neighbourhood of Quebec, and where 



198 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

they were accordingly removed on the 16th September, 1845. 

At this time the insane persons in the District of Montreal 
were confined in the jail; this however, was destitute of 
almost every requisite for a Lunatic Asylum. It was sur- 
rounded by buildings, there was no land on which the patients 
could be employed, the yards were insufficient for exercise, 
and moreover, the building was required for its more legiti- 
mate purposes. Under these circumstances, the Governor 
General directed the removal of the insane from the District 
of Montreal to the Temporary Asylum at Beauport. This 
Temporary Asylum was situated 2^^ miles from Quebec, and 
was leased for the purpose from Col. Gug^, M. P. P. 

The property comprised the Manor House, an extensive 
block of outbuildings of stone, and about two hundred acres 
of land. The grounds were diversified, were sufficiently well 
wooded, had a southern exposure, and commanded a magnificent 
view of the city and harbour of Quebec. 

The principal building was capable of being fitted up to 
accommodate 120 patients, with their attendants. 

On the 10th September, the arrangements were completed 
for the reception of 100 patients. The apartments consisted 
of a public dining room, a corridor for male patients, 108 feet 
by 12 wide, with bed- rooms opening into it, containing 40 
beds, and one large dormitory containing 24 beds. The female 
patients occupied a day-room 36 by 18, a work-room 40 by 
22, and five bed-rooms containing 40 beds. Several female 
patients capable of sewing or being otherwise employed, were 
lodged with the Warden and Matron in the Manor House. 

On the morning of the 15th September, 1845, the insane 
persons in charge of the religious ladies of the General Hos- 
pital in Quebec, were transferred to the Asylum at Beauport. 
Much interest was felt by the undersigned in the removal of 
these unfortunate beings. One had been confined 28 years, 
several upwards of 20 years, and the remainder for various 
lesser periods. During the whole of this time they had been 
shut up in separate cells, in a low, one story building, and 
surrounded by a strong cedar fence, 12 feet high. They had 
never been permitted to leave the building, most of them had 
never been allowed to leave the separate small cells in which 



CARE OF THE INSANE 199 

they had been confined; and, excepting on an occasional visit 
from the Grand Jury, they had rarely seen any person but 
those who ministered to their urgent wants. Of these patients, 
almost all were filthy in their habits; many were considered 
destructive; and the remainder had become imbecile or 
idiotic. 

They were removed in open carriages and in cabs. They 
offered no resistance; on the contrary, they were delighted 
with the ride; and the view of the city, the river, trees, and 
the passers by, excited in them the most pleasurable emo- 
tions. — On their arrival at the Asylum at Beauport, they 
were placed together at table to breakfast; and it was most 
interesting to witness the propriety of their conduct, to watch 
their actions, to listen to their conversation with each other, 
and to remark the amazement with which they regarded every- 
thing around them. All traces of ferocity, turbulence and 
noise had suddenly vanished; they found themselves again 
in the world, and treated like rational beings; and they en- 
deavored to behave as such. One, a man of education and 
talents, whose mind was in fragments, but whose recollection 
of a confinement of 28 years was most vivid, wandered from 
window to window. He saw Quebec, and knew it to be a city ; 
he knew ships and boats on the river and bay, but could not 
comprehend steamers. Before leaving the General Hospital, 
the Nuns had clothed him well and given him a pair of shoes. 
He remarked that he had been a long time shut up, and 
that it was 19 years since he had last seen leather. Another, 
a man who had been confined 20 years, and who had always 
evinced a turbulent disposition, demanded a broom, and com- 
menced sweeping; he insisted on the others employing them- 
selves also. He observed, "these poor people are all fools, and 
if you will give me a constable's staff, you will see how 
I will manage them, and make them work." 

As soon as their muscular powers were sufficiently restored, 
the patients were induced to employ themselves in occupa- 
tions the most congenial to their former habits and tastes. 
Some worked in the garden, others preferred sawing and 
splitting wood. The female patients were taken out daily, and 
many of them engaged in weeding in the garden. 



200 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

The effects of this system were soon apparent in their im- 
proved, health and spirits; they became stronger, and ate and 
slept better. Some of them were restored to reason. One 
had been confined many years in a cell in the General Hos- 
pital; 13 months after his removal to the Asylum at Beauport, 
he was restored to his family and friends; another had also 
been an inmate of a cell several years, and after her discharge 
from the Asylum, engaged as a School Teacher. The other 
patients generally, though greatly improved, afforded small 
prospect of recovery; the disease of the brain had become 
chronic or organic, and their faculties and mental powers 
had been so weakened by long disease, as to preclude any 
reasonable hope of restoring them to society and to their 
friends. It is, however, gratifying to be able to state that 
of all those removed from the General Hospital to the 
Asylum at Beauport, one only has been subject to even 
temporary restraint. 

On the 28th Sept. 1845, the insane patients, 52 in number, 
were transferred from the Jail in Montreal to the Asylum at 
Beauport. As a class they were much more violent and 
destructive than the patients previously admitted from the 
other districts. Their cases, however, were more curable, 
and their minds less weakened by long confinement. 

On the 5th October, the insane patients, 7 in number, were 
brought down from Three Rivers. Their condition was much 
more deplorable than that of the patients admitted from Que- 
bec. They arrived chained and handcuffed. We were in- 
formed by their keepers that some of them had been kept 
fastened to staples driven into the floors of their respective 
cells. When approached, they shewed a disposition to bite, 
even after their hands and feet had been unfastened. No 
appearance of violence or turbulence was evinced after their 
admission into the Asylum; on the contrary, they were found 
extremely harmless and docile. 

One of these patients, a Canadian, and a powerfully made 
man, was pointed out by his keeper as being extremely violent 
and dangerous. He strongly opposed his being unfastened; 
this however was done on board of the steamer, and he was 
conducted to a cab, which he entered without any opposition 



CARE OF THE INSANE 201 

or reluctance. He answered to the name of Jacques, but could 
give no account of himself whatever. He had been picked 
up in the woods on the River St. Maurice, with his feet frozen, 
and had been confined in the cells at Three Rivers during a 
period of seven years. A few days after his removal to 
Beauport, observing a man sawing wood, he pushed liim 
aside, took the saw and used it himself; this seemed to aflord 
him great pleasure. When not so employed out of doors, his 
constant amusement was in fishing. He would stand for 
hours together as if using a rod and line, and sometimes as 
if fishing through a hole in the ice. He was found to be quite 
inollensive and harmless. He died of diseased lungs on the 
7th March, 1846. Soon after his death, his brother and son 
arrived from the neighbourhood of Montreal in search of him, 
being attracted by a notice in the public prints, that an insane 
man, who could give no account of himself had been found 
wandering in one of the parishes below Quebec, and sent to 
the Asylum at Beauport. His friends stated that Jacques 
had escaped from their charge several years before, and that 
not being able to trace him, or gain any tidings of him, 
they concluded that he had perished in the woods. 

On the 5th October, 1845, the whole number of patients 
in the Asylum was 82. Since then the number has been 
gradually increasing, and additional rooms have been from 
time to time fitted up as well to accommodate this increasing 
number as to afford the means of their more complete separa- 
tion and classification. 

On the 1st October, 1848, the period expired during which 
the undersigned had engaged with the Government for the 
care, maintenance, and medical treatment of the insane from 
the different districts in C. E. and they take the occasion of 
their entering into another engagement for a further period, 
to lay before the Commissioners a statement of what has 
been done during the past three years, in their endeavours to 
carry out the intentions of the Government to ameliorate 
the condition of the insane. 

STATE OF PATIENTS ON ADMISSION. 

On the 1st of October, 1845, there were 82 patients in the 
Asylum. Of these more than 60 were considered as affording 



202 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

very faint or no hopes of recovery. Most of these had suffered 
so greatly from long confinement and restraint, as to present 
body and mind equally broken down and diseased. One died 
within 24 hours after admission, two more within 15 days, 
and eleven within the ensuing 12 months. 

From the 1st October, 1845, to 1st October, 1848, there 
have been admitted 152 cases: the greater number of these 
had been for years previous to their admission subject to 
treatment which tended to confirm their disease. Few recent 
cases were brought to the Asylum, or until they could be no 
longer taken care of by their friends, in consequence of their 
dangerous propensities, or filthy habits. Some had been con- 
fined in Jail as dangerous, and had been allowed to remain 
there for months before their removal to the Asylum. Very 
many of the patients have arrived tied, chained and excoriated, 
furious and excited by restraint, and impaired in health by 
long continued seclusion. 

These cases presented almost every variety of insanity, 
homicidal, furious, suicidal, melancholy, religious and gay. 
One was admitted with his windpipe divided; several, after 
different suicidal attempts. One, a powerful man, had been 
tied for some time to his bed, before admission, and the cords 
on his wrists had been so tightened by his furious endeavours 
to get loose, as to induce mortification of both his hands. We 
are convinced from our observation and experience, that of 
the incurables now in the Asylum, three-fourths are so from 
the want of proper treatment in an Asylum, at the commence- 
ment of their disease. Nothing is more strongly impressed 
on our minds than the fact, that on the first attack of in- 
sanity, time lost in the treatment of the complaint is seldom 
recovered. Of all those admitted during the past three years, 
43 only have been recent cases. Of these 21 have been dis- 
charged, cured, and only 2 have had a return of mental disease. 
It is thus obviously a matter of economy, apart from humane 
considerations, to secure for the insane prompt and efficient 
medical treatment at the early stage of their disease. 
RESTRAINT. 

In undertaking a charge which involved so great an amount 
of responsibility, we availed ourselves of every obtainable 



CARE OF THE INSANE 203 

information from similar institutions, as well in Europe as 
in the United States. The result of our inquiries was a 
conviction that the greatest amount of good was to be effected 
by an uniform and unvarying system of conciliation and 
kindness. This system carried into full effect by intelligent 
and active servants, we have found to answer admirably. At 
first a chair, made to confine the arms, was used, but was 
shortly abandoned for the leather strap and wrist bands or 
mitts; this has been the only restraining apparatus used in 
the Asylum for upwards of two years. It allows the patients 
to take free exercise either in or out of doors, and prevents 
any injury they might be disposed to inflict either on them- 
selves or on others. Even this apparatus is very rarely em- 
ployed; its use has been in a great measure superseded by 
increased capacity and watchfulness on the part of the at- 
tendants, and these qualities in the attendants have, on 
the other hand, been brought into more active exercise by the 
disuse of restraining apparatus. 

Seclusion, as a means of restraint, is occasionally, but 
very seldom resorted to, and then only for a very short period, 
during a paroxysm: and when long continued, we have rea- 
son to believe it to be injurious to the patient, and only to be 
sanctioned by extreme necessity. Restraint, whether by means 
of the body strap and mitts or by seclusion, are only per- 
mitted to be employed by the order and under the immediate 
superintendance of the resident Physician or Warden. 

All violence, abusive language, or threats, on the part of 
the attendants towards the patients, is punished by immediate 
dismissal; and we are happy to say that only on two occasions 
have instances of abuse been brought under our notice during 
the past three years. 

EMPLOYMENT. 

Among the means which we have found most useful in 
tranquillizing the insane, and in enabling us to dispense so 
fully with the use of restraint, exercise and employment in 
the open air may be reckoned as the most useful. 
AMUSEMENTS. 

In several cases we have found music and dancing of great 
benefit as remedial agents. In one ease they roused a patient 



204 MY FATHER'S JOUENAL 

from a state of the most abject melancholy, and gave a 
stimulus to his mental faculties, which resulted in perfect 
recovery. In another case they effected a change from a state 
of melancholy with strong suicidal propensities, to a state of 
cheerfulness and enjoyment, which still continues, and is like- 
ly also to result in cure. Whatever opinion may be formed 
of dancing by the sane, it is unquestionably a legitimate and 
fitting source of amusement for insane persons. 

[There can be no doubt as to the authorship of this 
last sentence. My father though he may not have 
practiced all John Wesley's precepts had a horror of 
dancing.] 

By the statement of admissions, discharges and deaths, it 
will be seen that of 234 cases admitted during the past three 
years, 109 were cases of long standing, and in whom of 
consequence the chances of cure were very much reduced. 
It is to be expected that the majority of the cases to be ad- 
mitted for some time to come, will also be cases of consider- 
able standing, and of course with a small average of re- 
coveries. Extreme reluctance was manifested on the part 
of the friends of insane persons to send them to such re- 
ceptacles as existed some years ago; this reluctance still 
exists. The idea of an Asylum is still associated with dark 
cells, with furious madness, chains, straw, filth, and naked- 
ness. Some time will yet elapse ere the friends of insane 
persons in Canada will send them to an Asylum for the 
mere purpose of cure, with a full assurance that as much 
quiet, cleanliness, order and subordination exist, as in any 
Hospital for the cure of any other disease. 

The building now occupied as an Asylum, though the best 
that could be obtained at the time, was not built for the 
purpose, and is manifestly inadequate. It does not afford us 
the means of carrying out our wishes and intentions a-s to 
the complete separation and classification of the patients, and 
from their increasing number it has become necessary to re- 
move several of them to another building on the property of 
the late Judge De Bonne. These circumstances, under an 
arrangement with Government for a further period of seven 




o 



CA.RE OF THE INSANE 205 

years, have decided us to erect an Hospital of such an extent 
and with such arrangements as will combine every thing 
necessary to the cure of persons afflicted with mental disease. 
The necessary contracts have been entered into, for the erec- 
tion of the Hospital on the plan herewith submitted, and we 
confidently hope to be able to remove the patients from 
the present to the contemplated new Asylum, during the 
month of September next. 

The Government, relieved by the contract from 
taking immediate action, did nothing, as is usual with 
Governments. But they resorted to the easiest expe- 
dient, as told in the last paragraph of the first re- 
port—they renewed the contract for seven years on 
condition that suitable buildings be erected. These 
were built on the site of the present women's build- 
ing. The original structure was architecturally less 
hideous than the present, for the central building was 
surmounted by a shapely dome. The women occu- 
pied the west wing; the men the east. 

From the second report issued in 1851 the follow- 
ing extracts are made: 

REPORT. 
GENTLEMEN,— 

Since the date of our last report, it has pleased Almighty 
God to bless our endeavours to restore health of mind to 
many of the patients committed to our care. 

In very many cases, where the disease of the brain was 
of long duration, or accompanied by circumstances which 
rendered a restoration to reason nearly or utterly hopeless, 
we have been enabled, at least, to render them happy, cheer- 
ful, contented, and in many instances, useful. 

In the worst and most revolting cases, among the idiotic, 
the dangerous and the filthy, we have, by steady perseverance 
in a system of care and kindness, brought their minds to as 
high a degree of enjoyment and comfort as their merely 



206 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

animal natures are susceptible of. In these, and in the pre- 
ceding class of cases, if we could not hope to restore them to 
reason and to the world, we could at least do much to mitigate 
the horrors which had hitherto accompanied a deprivation of 
reason, and had rendered these unfortunates the objects of 
chains, bars, out-houses, starvation and neglect. 

At the date of our last report there were in the Asylum: — 

Males 70 

Females 60 

— 130 
There have been admitted since: — 

Males 101 

Females 30 

131 

The total number under treatment since October 

1, 1848, up to the 1st May, 1851, has been 311 

Of these have been discharged: — 

Cured Males 28 

Females 24 

— 52 
Improved Males . . . . . . . . . . 3 

Females . . . . . . . . . . 2 

— 5 
Not Improved Males . . . . . . . . 1 

Females . . 1 

— 2 



Have died — Males . . . . . . . . . . 46 

Females . . . . . . . . . . 30 

— 76 
Remaining 1st May, 1851: 

Males 95 

Females . . . . . . . . • • • . 81 

— 176 

In our last Report, we adverted to the great numbers of in- 
curable cases in the Asylum, we observed that — 

The opinion expressed has been most fully borne out by 



CAEE OF THE INSANE 207 

our experience since that time. Of the 181 cases admitted 
from October, 1848, to this date, 51 may be considered as 
having been recent, and as offering a reasonable hope of res- 
toration to reason. The remainder were old cases in whom 
body and mind were equally broken down. Some were idiotic, 
some paralytic, and many epileptic. The majority of the 
cases were sent to the Asylum after having exhausted the 
sympathies and patience of their friends, and worn out even 
their hopes of their death. One, an aged man of 82, and 
paralytic, was brought a distance of 180 miles, to die with- 
in two hours. Five others during this period were admitted, 
whose ages were from 70 to 80 years. 

Of the 181 cases admitted since October, 1848, 44 have 
recovered. 

The remainder as well as those brought forward to date 
of last Report remain in Hospital, and, with a few exceptions, 
will be only discharged by death. 

This picture, melancholy as it undoubtedly is, yet affords 
matter for consolation. 

The whole number of patients now in the Asylum may 
be classified as follows, with tolerable correctness: — 

Reasonable hopes of recovery 16 

Very doubtful 8 

Nearly or quite hopeless 152 — 176 

It is not to be supposed that this classification is arbitrary. 
On the contrary, many in whom there appears now a reason- 
able hope of recovery will gradually sink into confirmed 
lunacy, while occasionally one whose case now appears hope- 
less will recover. This has occurred so frequently as to cause 
us to hesitate before condemning any individual patient to the 
society of idiots and incurables, and thus extinguishing all 
hope; for the same laws which regulate the mind in the 
healthy, equally regulate it in the diseased state. In society 
we find that associations with the virtuous and intelligent 
tend to exalt and ennoble the mind, while associations with 
the depraved and worthless equally tend to lower and de- 
base it. 

From the foregoing table it will be observed that the 



208 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

patients now in the Asylum are mostly incurable cases, and 
we wish particularly to direct attention to the fact, that the 
time will very shortly arrive when these will occupy the en- 
tire Asylum, to the exclusion of recent and curable cases. 

With regard to restraining apparatus, the mitts have 
been abandoned, and the only restraint now used is the leather 
body strap, and this for the purpose of preventing the patient 
injuring himself, — never for the purpose of preventing him 
from injuring others. The less restraining apparatus are 
used, the more vigilant and watchful do the attendants be- 
come. 

In the almost entire disuse of restraint, we may observe, 
that no successful suicide has taken place, and no serious 
injury has at any time been inflicted by any patient, either on 
himself or on others. 

The building referred to in our last report has been fully 
occupied since April, 1850. It is constructed of grey lime- 
stone, hammer-dressed and laid in courses. It is covered 
with slates, and surmounted by a dome and lantern. The 
front, including the wings, is 418 feet. — The building consists 
of two stories, with basements and attics. The basement is 
devoted to kitchen, offices, cellars and furnace rooms. The 
first story contains Physician's and Superintendent's offices, 
a dining room on each side, 40 x 40, corridors or day-rooms, 
130 X 20, with bed-rooms, bath and wash-rooms. The second 
story contains a dining-room on each side, corridors 80x20. 
The remainder of this story is divided into bed-rooms and 
dormitories; the attics are divided into large work-rooms in 
front, and bed-rooms in each wing. The lodges are situated 
at the extremity of each wing, and consist of four day-rooms 
and thirty- two bed-rooms. 

The whole, as now finished, is capable of affording ample 
accommodation for 275 patients. 

Referring to certain architectural details of the 
new buildings the contractors say: 

''Of the minor architectural arrangements, and the internal 
management of the Asylum, your frequent visits leave us 



CARE OF THE INSANE 209 

little to remark. We may merely observe that the lands and 
buildings, as now completed, have caused us an expenditure 
in money of upwards of £12,000, and that something yet 
remains to be expended in out-houses and work-shops. We 
have hitherto been guided by a desire to adopt every architec- 
tural arrangement, and every modern improvement which 
could in any way conduce to the comfort, enjoyment, welfare 
and safe-keeping of the insane, and we have done so without 
regard to merely economical considerations, and on a scale 
which leaves us little hope of being remunerated for our out- 
lay and exertions. It must be apparent to every one that an 
Asylum cannot be conducted at the same amount of expen- 
diture as an ordinary hospital or poor-house; the general 
arrangements are much more costly; the wear and tear of 
bedding and clothing; the number of attendants and servants; 
the quality and cost of diet, are all much greater." 

The next report published was issued in 1855. The 
fourth in 1858. It reverts to a subject which always 
worried the Management, viz., crowding the wards 
with incurables, most of whom were harmless but 
too hopelessly deficient in mind to be cured. They 
could not be made useful at home and therefore were 
foisted on the public. The proportion of this class 
of the insane in Quebec is large, and that of the 
maniacal class very small. The report for 1858 
recalls the attention of the authorities to the crowd- 
ing out of recent cases by the chronic insane and 
by old men and women suffering from other diseases 
as well as mental, which were discussed in previous 
reports apparently to no purpose. It continues: 

We regret that the xeport now submitted to you, shews 
no improvement whatever in this respect. 

From the tables of admissions, discharges and deaths it 
will be seen that of the 143 admitted during the past 



210 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

year, 55 only were recent cases, or which afforded any 
reasonable hope of recovery; of the remainder, 69 were old 
persons, or demented, or idiots, to whom the Asylum affords 
only a comfortable home until death. 

Nineteen were fatally ill with organic disease on their 
admission: of these 14 have already died, — one within 6 
weeks; 4 within 5 weeks; 1 within 12 days; and 1 within 
8 days; and, in all human probability, 8 more of those ad- 
mitted during the past year will be, in a very few weeks, 
consigned to the grave. 

Of the 143 cases admitted during the past year, 4 were 
upwards of 70 years old; 5 were upwards of 67; and 5 were 
upwards of 60 years. 

Of the 143 cases admitted during the past year, 17 have 
died; their pathological condition was: 5 exhaustion; 3 con- 
sumption; 4 chronic bowel complaint; 1 disease of heart; 1 
dropsy; 2 palsy; 1 inflammation of lungs. 

By reference to the tables, it will be observed that the 
number of patients in the Asylum is steadily increasing. — 
The steady increase of the population of the province will 
more than account for the increased demand for admission; 
and the very liberal sum which the benevolence of the Gov- 
ernment has granted for the care and maintenance of the in- 
sane, has, no doubt, been the cause of inducing many persons 
to send old and chronic cases to the Asylum — cases which 
would and ought to have remained under the care of their, 
friends. 

As we very properly are relieved from any responsibility 
connected with the admission of the patients, we are not 
prepared to say that the admission of these aged and infirm 
persons has been to the exclusion of recent and curable 



Having constantly felt the want of correct information 
on the state and condition of the patients, previous to their 
admission into the Asylum, the Government, on the requisi- 
tion of your Board, directed that each application for admis- 
sion should be accompanied by answers to certain queries; 
among which the principal were on the form in which the 



CARE OF THE INSANE 211 

inaanity manifested itself j its known or supposed caiiae; the 
duration of the disease; and its probable hereditary taint. 

The knowledge of these facts is of extreme importance to 
us, as well in the treatment of the disease as in enabling ua 
to arrive at any reliable statistical result. We regret to say 
that the intentions of the Government and of your Board have 
been very imperfectly carried outj as during the past year, 
out of the 143 patients admitted, answers to these queries 
have only been furnished in 36 cases. 

The causes of insanity, as given in the ordinary statisti- 
cal tables of asylums, are very numerous. Many of these 
causes, however, may fairly be considered rather as eilects. 

The rural population of this province is particularly ex- 
empt from most of the causes which are supposed to induce 
insanity; they are not only free from want, or from a struggle 
for the means of existence, but they are mostly proprietors. — 
They are free from those disturbing religious feelings which, 
in the United States, are stated to be a prolific cause of in- 
sanity. They are an extremely moral people, and free from 
that secret vice which is so prevalent in other countries; 
which, without doubt, weakens and destroys the mind, and 
of which we have so many deplorable cases in the Asylum. 
Intemperance, one of the most common causes, and one which 
existed in great force a few years ago, is now happily ban- 
ished in a great degree from the country, and confined prin- 
cipally to the cities and their neighborhood. We have rea- 
son to believe intemperance to be a fruitful source of in- 
sanity: in stating this to be our opinion, we feel compelled, 
as medical men, to state broadly and unequivocally our 
reasons for it. 

It is a well-known law of the animal economy, that any 
organ or organs unduly excited, suffer, in consequence, a pro- 
portionate degree of debility or exhaustion. 

It is well known that the due performance of the func- 
tions of the brain depend on the healthy state and condition 
of the digestive organs. It is well known that the effect of 
intoxicating drinks is to disturb the digestive functions, and 
cause disease of the organs. Independently of i;his reflex 



212 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

action upon the brain, the effect of intoxicating drinks in 
immediately disturbing the functions of the brain itself, is too 
obvious to require any statement of ours to give it force. As 
this unnatural and unliealthy stimulus acts so surely and so 
injuriously on the digestive organs, it acts more surely, more 
speedily, and more injuriously, on the brain and nervous 
system. 

There is one cause, and one which we have reason to 
believe, is on the increase in this province; viz., hereditary 
taint. In the absence of reliable returns, we are not pre- 
pared to say in what proportion of cases this cause operates. 
We have ample proof that it does operate, and to a very con- 
siderable extent. We have already stated that, during the 
past year, we have received answers in 36 cases only! to the 
question "whether insanity was known to exist in the fam- 
ily?" In twelve of these it is certified that insanity had 
manifested itself in the parents or in the immediate blood re- 
lations. — Nothing is more certain than that the physical and 
mental qualities of parents are transmitted to their children; 
this is equally true with respect to the transmission of their 
tendencies to specific and well-defined diseases. This fact is 
well known to agriculturists, and is acted upon by them in 
the selection or rearing of their stock; although they them- 
selves, like the community in general, form matrimonial ties 
without any reference to the purity of blood or tendency to 
disease in their families. 

There are now in the Asylum: — ^Mother and daughters; 
brothers; sisters; brothers and sisters. 

With respect to this hereditary taint, it is remarked by 
Dr. Eay, one of the most acute observers in the United States, 
that, "of all the physical causes of insanity, none should be 
more carefully heeded than this, because it is, at the same 
time, the most prolific and the most easily avoided. 

Patients, however, were forced on the contractors 
in excess of the accommodations. A board of Asylum 
and Prison Inspection was created and their reports 
from the first complained of overcrowding. Nor was 



CAEE OF THE INSANE 213 

the complaint easy to remedy under the contract sys- 
tem, especially as the Government never oblip^ated 
itself to buy the real estate of the contractor at the 
termination of a contract. The second contract for 
seven years was renewed for ten. The quotations 
from the managers' early reports refer to the un- 
profitable terms of the contract, which I think al- 
lowed 37I/2 cents per day for feeding, clothing and 
housing each patient, and providing medical and 
nursing attendance. The buildings erected were use- 
less for any other purpose. To relieve the over- 
crowding the Richardson residence, where the present 
men's building now stands, to the east of the orig- 
inal property, was converted into very incommodious 
overflow quarters for men. The central building in 
1862-63 was torn down and rebuilt with two addi- 
tional stories: and two square three-story structures 
flanked the front of the building, communicating 
with it and the old wings. But these were palpably 
insufficient and the overcrowding, as the jails were 
emptied into the Asylum, became insufferable. Mat- 
ters became more and more intolerable when Con- 
federation happened to be under discussion. The 
two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada were still 
under one government. John Macdonald and Etienne 
Cartier were virtually joint premiers. My father 
and Dr. Landry met them, and they promised a re- 
newal of the contract for ten years, if another large 
building to accommodate the men were erected. They 
were about starting for England on their Confedera- 
tion mission and could not discuss details. But upon 
their assurance of a renewal of the contract the men 's 



214 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

building was commeneed. The Asylum came un- 
der the control of Hon. Wm. McDougall. He was 
an able man, but only too glad if anyone would re- 
lieve him from work. This the Hon. Hector Longeoin 
was only too willing to do, and therefore the details 
of the contract were turned over to him. He imme- 
diately suggested certain modifications. One was 
that the resident physician should be appointed by 
Government. This my father objected to, as it would 
introduce divided authority into the household. The 
proposal was modified to the appointment by Govern- 
ment of the medical inspector to be paid by the 
contractor. The Government however did not accept 
or reject the dietary nor the general rules of the 
establishment, but left all these questions on which 
loss or profit depended, considering the scanty mar- 
gin available, open to the decision of the Inspector. 
It was evident, therefore, that the medical contrac- 
tors, committed to an expenditure of about $120,000 
on the new building, could be placed at any mo- 
ment in a very precarious financial position. Mac- 
donald and Cartier, when appealed to, were too 
busy with imperial concerns to interest themselves in so 
trivial a matter. There was nothing left but to sign 
the contract under protest, though it was perfectly 
well understood that the protest was not worth the 
paper it was written on. Dr. Roy, a great friend of 
Father Bolduc, the Chaplain to the Asylum, and of 
M. Cauchon, then in both the Federal and Provincial 
Parliaments, was appointed government visiting 
physician. 




D— CL— s- Govt. Executive 

NOLENS VOLENS. 



Sale of Lunatic Asylum — a Case of Nolens Volens 



CARE OF THE INSANE 217 

The new contract worked without friction; but we 
perfectly understood that to the local government and 
the Church my father was not a persona grata, and 
that from some quarter or other overtures of pur- 
chase would be made. On the eve of my father's de- 
parture for Europe in the fall of 1865, Mr. 
Joseph Cauchon came to an Asylum ball with the in- 
tention of broaching the subject to him, but they did 
not meet. Soon after he had sailed, M. Cauchon 
approached me. Knowing that retirement from the 
contract was inevitable, and that unless we retired 
gracefully we would be compelled to retreat with 
loss, I in my father's absence agreed with M. Cauchon 
to sell one-half at what the landed property, the 
buildings and the stores on hand originally cost, the 
valuation to be determined by Mr. Vincellette, the 
Superintendent and Treasurer of the Asylum. There 
was no concealment during the negotiations as to M. 
Cauchon being the purchaser, but the deed was made 
in Dr. Eoy's favor and he signed it. My father's 
other quarter was bought by Dr. Landry at $10,000, 
less than its equivalent value, because of an option 
to repurchase which my father in his generosity had 
given to the widow of his old partner, Dr. Fremont, 
in favor of any one of his sons who might be quali- 
fied to fill his father's place. That ultimately Dr. Roy 
claimed to own M. Cauchon 's interest and that M. Cau- 
chon was obliged to resign his seat in the local legis- 
lature for illegally holding a contract under govern- 
ment, were matters of public record. To myself per- 
sonally retirement from the Asylum was a great grief. 



218 ]\IY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

I had been unofficially for several years engaged in 
its management and was studying medicine to qualify 
myself to be my father's partner and successor. I 
had been brought up among the insane and was fond 
of them and had acquired that tact which is so es- 
sential to their management. 

Dr. Roy and after Dr. Landry's death, his son, 
though not a physician, carried on the contract till 
1893, when the property and the contract were trans- 
ferred to the Sisters of Charity. Thus the insane 
returned to the care of a religious order after the 
lapse of more than half a century. During that half 
century the treatment of mental diseases had kept 
pace with the progress of medicine and surgery, and 
none were better qualified than the good sisters to 
avail themselves of the humanitarian method which 
had displaced the older barbarous practices.* 

For some years before my father's involuntary re- 
tirement from the Asylum the contract had been 
profitable. The increase in the number of patients 
had coincided with the great drop in the price of all 
provisions due to the "War of Secession and the high 



*The Daily Telegraph of April 8, 1893, in its account of the 
negotiations between the Sisters of Charity and the Pro- 
prietors put the price paid for the Asylum at $425,000, a sum 
greatly in excess of what Mr. Cauchon and Dr. Landry paid 
for it, though in the interval they had not erected any large 
additions. The Telegraph gives the contract price per head 
as only $100 per annum. The Government appoints the med- 
ical staff and the medical treatment is taken out of the 
control of the contractors, who have merely to feed, clothe 
and lodge the inmates. 



CARE OF THE INSANE 219 

price of gold. If I recollect aright, our calculations 
had been based on flour at $7.00, and it dropped to 
$4.00, and of pork at $20.00 or $21.00, and it dropped 
to $7.00 or $8.00 a barrel. But except during that 
limited period of time, the profits were not com- 
mensurate to the risk and the labor. 

This whole story of the buying and selling of a 
sacred public trust, and the calculation of profits 
from the treatment of the most helpless of all af- 
flicted creatures, is in itself an unanswerable argu- 
ment against farming out the insane. 

In their report for 1873 the Proprietors discuss in 
great detail the economy of the farming out system 
as compared with that of State control. They say: 
*'In virtue of a contract between the Provincial Gov- 
ernment and the Proprietors of the Asylum of Que- 
bec, the insane are treated in this establishment." 
''Under the arrangement the Government engages to 
supply 650 patients to the asylum, and in case more 
than that number have to be provided for, up to any 
reasonable number, they must be received at a lower 
price. ' ' 

"The Asylum contains at present nearly 800 pa- 
tients, for each of which the Government pays $143.00 
per year. Under the new contract there will be 
only 650 patients for which the Government will pay 
$143.00; the surplus will cost the Government only 
$132.00 per head.'' 

The proprietors then proceed to compare the price 
paid by the Quebec Government with the cost of 
maintenance per patient in the United States and 
Europe. They arrived at the following figures: 



220 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

England — — $122.20 per year per patient. 

France — - $136.58 '' *' '' 

United States — $257.40 

Canada— Toronto Asylum — $131.75 

London '' — 129.24 

Rockwood '' — 143.00 

St. Jokns, New Brunswick — 111.76 

Halifax, Nova Scotia — 186.64 

St. John, Quebec — 265.85 

Quebec — — 108.00 

The figure named, $108.00, does not correspond 
with the old contract price, nor with what is under- 
stood to be the contract price of today, $116.00. If 
it represents the actual cost to the contractors, it 
shows too small a margin on a contract price of 
$116.00, and too large a margin on a contract of 
$132.00. In comparing prices the fact must be taken 
into consideration that the contractors have to provide 
buildings, which are not included in the maintenance 
cost of institutions supported by G-ovemment. 

The table however illustrates the weakness of the 
contract system from any other point of view than 
economy. If the insane are farmed out, every econ- 
omy has to be exercised by the contractor, and he 
has to calculate how cheaply he can support his es- 
tablishment in order to make as much money as he 
conscientiously can, instead of considering what im- 
provements in construction or internal economy he 
can introduce which would add to the comfort or the 
sanitary wellbeing of his patients. That the Quebec 
Lunatic Asj'^lum is run at less cost than any other 
is a damaging admission, even admitting that the 



CARE OF THE INSANE 221 

standard of living of the French Canadian habitant 
is not high. It means that either there is unneces- 
sary extravagance everywhere else, or unjustifiable 
economy at Beauport. The other insane asylums in 
the Province of Quebec receive the same allowance 
per patient as the Beauport Asylum, but the Verdun 
Protestant Asylum is under a board of managers, 
and no profit is made out of the care of the inmates. 
In the case of this Protestant Asylum, public sub- 
scriptions supplement the Government grant to an 
amount which enables the management to expend on 
the patients an amount approaching $200.00 per head. 
The more the Government beats down the contractor, 
the more he is compelled to meet the cut by econo- 
mies which must be made out of the wellbeing of 
the patients; and if additional buildings have to be 
erected, they must almost inevitably be planned and 
constructed with the view to cheapness rather than 
the highest hygienic principles and perfect safety 
from fire. Dr. Tuke in 1884 visited the Asylums of 
Ontario and Quebec. The State conducted Asylum 
of Ontario received his commendatory notice; the 
Asylums at Longue Pointe and Beauport he consid- 
ered a disgrace. He ends his criticism as follows: 
"The Proprietors only receive $11.00 per head per 
month for maintenance and clothing.* The system 
involves the probability of their being sacrificed to 
the interests of the Proprietors. It has the disas- 
trous tendency to keep the dietary as low as possible, 
to lead to a deficiency in the supply of clothing and 



*The amount now paid is only $9.66. 



222 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

to a minimum of attendants, thus inducing a want 
of proper attention to the patients and an excessive 
resort to mechanical restraints, instead of the indi- 
vidual personal care which is so needful for their 
happiness and the promotion of their recovery. I 
consider that the number of attendants in such an 
asylum should not be less than one to seven instead 
of one to fifteen; and that a higher class should be 
obtained by giving higher wages." 

In 1887 a Royal Commission was appointed to in- 
vestigate the lunatic asylums of the Province. It 
reported in the following year. The following ex- 
tract is made from the Morning Chronicle's con- 
densation of the Report: 

The Woman's Hospital was inspected by the Commission- 
ers, and they, it must be confessed, found much to criticise. 
"In the infirmary there were many defects to notice. The 
light and ventilation were found to be defective, and even 
patients suti'ering merely from temporary illness remain in 
the infirmary all the time. All the wards, with the ex- 
ception of Nos. 12 and 14, which are simply deplorable, are 
fairly well kept. Wards 12 and 14 are in the top story, 
and the roof may be touched with the hand. The patients 
are simply in pens. The dormitories reserved for the better 
class of patients are in a satisfactory condition and are kept 
clean. The mattresses are made of straw. Putting it 
mildly, the Commissioners say that much is left to be wished 
for in the cells, especially in those of the uncleanly patients. 
The bedsteads are of wood or iron. Many of the dormitories 
are overcrowded, and there is not sufficient space in them 
to ensure the comfort of the patients. The baths and privies 
are badly kept and in general are dirty. The patients are 
permitted to stay in them an unnecessarily long time. The 
ordinary refectories are large, airy and well lighted. The 
patients are allowed spoons only at their meals, and of 



CARE OF THE INSANE 223 

course, many of them eat with their fingers. The patients 
are hurried too much at their meals, and complaints are in- 
dicated of the inattention of keepers. The food supplied 
seems to be atrocious. It is indifferent in quality, lacking in 
quantity and not sufficiently varied. A decided improve- 
ment in the food supplied to the unfortunate inmates is 
urgently demanded. Though the clothing of the female pa- 
tients is pretty good as a rule, the Commissioners found that 
in certain wards, there was much to be desired in this re- 
spect. The cells are too numerous, and are back to back. 
They have no windoAvs. Light only comes in from the cor- 
ridors by small openings made in the doors or from above. 
Again complaint is made of the insufficiency of light and 
ventilation. All the wards are overcrowded, and the cur- 
able and incurable patients, are mixed up together, with the 
patients suffering from chronic mania, and those affected 
with dementia and other similar diseases. This system, the 
Commissioners rightly condemn as serious obstacles in the 
way of curing those susceptible of cure. During their visit, 
the Commissioners saw many patients under means of re- 
straint, and this restraint appeared to be in excessive use. 
Probably on this point the keepers could be interrogated with 
advantage. On visiting the men's hospital at the Beauport 
Asylum, the Commissioners found matters very much as they 
found them in the female department. Bad ventilation, im- 
perfect light, filth, infectious smells, absolutely bad hygienic 
condition of the rooms, poor food, scanty appliances, over- 
crowding of the cells, dirty and ill-clothed patients, &c., 
proved the rule rather than the exception. As a rule the 
keepers can neither read nor write. They are not properly 
dressed, and the pay they receive is inadequate. The 
night service is bad and inadequate. Many of the pa- 
tients have no winter clothing, and this compels the 
keepers to force them to remain indoors durings the cold 
weather. Many of the patients never go out at all, solely 
because they have no clothes to wear. In summer, the pa- 
tients go out in an enclosed courtyard every day. The court- 
yard for the men, however, is unsuitable, because, after a 
rain storm, it takes two days before it gets dry enough for 



224 MYFATHEE'S JOUKNAL 

the patients to use it. There are too few keepers to look 
after all the patients. Though registration of all cases of 
restraint is supposed to be kept, the Commissioners have rea- 
son to believe that the registers are not regularly kept. 
The cubic space allowed each patient in the dormitories and 
cells is below the average." This fearful exhibit of the way 
things are managed at the Beauport Asylum, will awaken 
in the breasts of all men and women, feelings of the greatest 
indignation. We will return to this report again. In the 
meantime, there is food for reflection in what we publish 
to-day. 

Presumably many of these shortcomings complained 
of have been remedied. But the buildings would 
have to be rebuilt to bring them up to the level of 
modem requirements. And no matter what the con- 
ditions are today, the defects mentioned are inci- 
dental to the vicious system of farming out, and 
will continue in a more or less aggravated degree as 
long as the system continues to be adopted. 

No stronger argument against the farming out 
system could be used than the plea of Sister M. du 
Redempteur, Superioress of the Sisters of Charity, 
who own the Longue Pointe Asylum. She says in 
the Report for 1907 to the Inspectors of Prisons and 
Insane Asylums of the Province of Quebec: 

Sirs, 

The year 1907 has made us feel, yet more than in previous 
years, the insufficiency of the indemnity we receive from the 
government. 

All things necessary to life have attained prices almost 
prohibitive for us. We had to retrench on all sides in spite 
of our wish to do otherwise. We had even to discontinue the 
regular use of the electric tramway, connecting our main 
establishment with the village of Longue Fointe, near which 



CARE OF THE INSANE 225 

is Ste Th<5r&sc residence and dependencies, St. Isidore Resi- 
dence and the wharves. 

The need of enlarging is more and more felt. We have 
now temporaiy chapels which occupy space that might be 
devoted to the patients. 

For that, we would have to build; but the enormous debt 
weighing on our shoulders prevents us. Not a cent have we 
been able to pay yet on the million dollars borrowed for the 
construction of our present building. 

We are asked to follow the progresses made in the care of 
the insane even to anticipate them. Nothing pleases us more 
than to improve and improve constantly; but we must have 
the means and that is what we lack. We have a petition be- 
fore the government setting forth these things and we are 
trusting always that this petition will have the effect. In 
the meantime we suffer. 

The Government seems to flatter itself that the 
cost of board per head per annum is only $112.00. 
It should be ashamed of admitting that its nnfor- 
tnnate insane are supported and treated at such an 
insufficient sum, and that as a consequence the di- 
rectors of asylums have to admit that they cannot 
''follow the progresses made in the care of the in- 
sane'' by reason that they ''must have the means, 
and that is what they lack." The Sisters of Charity 
may be the most efficient managers of insane asy- 
lums, but the hospital should be supported by Gov- 
ernment, and kept up to the standard of the highest 
therapeutic efficiency. Under the present contract 
system, whose highest recommendation is that the 
cost to the Province per head is less than is expended 
on the insane by any other civilized community in 
the world, the only conclusion to be dra\\Ti is that 
either the contractors or the patients are being 
starved. Which is it ? Perhaps both ! ! ! 



i 



1: 



CHAPTER IX 

MY father's friends— sane AND INSANE 

My father had friends among the Roman Catholic 
clergy. He fully appreciated their heroism, as only 
those can, who, like him, see their devotion to duty, 
especially in seasons of pestilence. When the typhus 
fever epidemic, which followed the Irish famine, 
filled the Marine Hospital, and its temporary sheds 
to overflowing, with dying emigrants and seamen, he 
could not but admire the spirit of martyrdom, which 
nerved the priest to breathe the very breath of 
death, when receiving the last confession, before ad- 
ministering extreme unction. But he did disapprove 
of and reprobate in most unambiguous terms the 
endeavors made by the same priests to gather into the 
fold, at the last moment, when consciousness, or at 
least volition, had departed, Protestants who would 
have died rather than wittingly renounce their faith. 
Enveigling moribund Protestants into the Church 
was after all as much an act of duty, on the part of 
the priests, and, considering the risk they ran, equally 
heroic, as the much vaunted courage of the renowned 
Jesuit Fathers Joques and Goupil in jeopardizing 
their lives to save the souls of Iroquois babies. But 



228 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

though the act of the Quebec priests, committed 
within the stone walls of the Hospital, may not have 
differed in kind from that of the Jesuit missionaries, 
when they watched their opportunity to baptize un- 
observed the Mohawk babies, my father's views of 
fair play made him oppose the one even though he 
may have regarded with admiration the other. He 
of course believed that the priests' performance was 
supremely innocuous to the individual operated on; 
but he had witnessed once the horror with which a 
Scotch Presbyterian, on wakening to the last short 
glimpse of conscious life, which is sometimes vouch- 
safed to the dying, learnt that he had become a 
Roman. And he knew how harrowing it was to the 
feelings of survivors to hear that their lost ones had 
forsaken the faith of their fathers. 

The priest above all others whom he most en- 
joyed was Father MacMahon of St. Patrick's Church, 
probably because they both possessed to a high de- 
gree the faculty of telling and appreciating a good 
story. Father MacMahon was one of the Lever type 
of Irish priests, who ruled the boisterous elements 
of his congregation with blows, when words could no 
longer be heard. He was a great favorite with the 
men to whom his skill in handling the stick and his 
ready wit endeared him ; while the women worshipped 
him for his great charity, his kindly interest in 
everyone's joys and sorrows, and his homely elo- 
quence. He always spoke to the point, but of course 
reserved his greatest oratorical efforts for St. Pat- 
rick's Day, when he preached a political sermon* full 
of allusions, that stirred the susceptible hearts of 



MY FATHER'S FRIENDS 229 

his countrymen and drew a throng of the hated 
Saxons, all his good friends, who came to hear their 
villainous deeds described in such harsh warm 
terms by the warmhearted priest. We had a cook, 
''Old Norah.'' She was always ''Old Norah," for 
she never knew her own age. She was "Old Norah" 
when she came to us in 1842, and was "Old Norah" 
when we left her in Canada in 1875. She mourned 
for Father MacMahon when he died, with a pathetic 
grief. She held any priest, even a French priest, in 
reverence, but her devotion to Father MacMahon was 
as far removed from mere superstitious reverence as 
from that sickly sentimentality with which Protes- 
tants sometimes regard a popular divine. It was a 
tender personal attachment, etherialized by the vener- 
ation in which she held him for his spiritual office, 
and his supposed exaltation, by reason of that office, 
above the weaknesses of humanity. In course of 
time the French Archbishop saw fit, perhaps wisely, 
to place St. Patrick's congregation under the Re- 
demptorist Fathers. The St. Patrick's parsonage 
under their austere rule was no longer the house of 
genial hearty welcome it had been under Father 
MacMahon and his successor; and its kitchen ceased 
to be the place of adjournment for as many of the 
congregation as could crowd into it from the church 
after mass. Old Norah reverenced the monks, but 
^he never loved them like her old Father. By their 
strict discipline and temperance the Redemptorists 
did good work, but by methods less tangible than 
those of the jovial yet irrascible parish priest. 

"Father MacMahon 's postscript" is to this day a 



230 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

well understood argument. One of his parishioners 
went to him with a grievance which the good father 
was not inclined to admit. Failing to persuade him, 
the angry man threatened to resort to the Bishop, 
and if the Bishop would not right his wrongs, to 
appeal to the Pope. Father MacMahon listened to 
the tirade, which was fanned into violence by the 
priest's apparently cool indifference. "When it had 
exhausted itself, he led the angry member of his 
flock, which never contained many lambs, to the door, 
kicked him with one bound into the street and bade 
him put that into the postscript of his letter to the 
Pope. 

Another figure of those long gone by days pre- 
sents itself, whom my father held in highest esteem. 
It was Bishop Mountain of the Church of England. He 
was in person like a geometrical line — ^length without 
breadth, and his lean figure, its leanness exaggerated 
by his ecclesiastical costume, swayed and waved, as 
he walked, like a willow sapling in the breeze. His 
life in its simple piety, and extended labors, recalled 
that of such medieval missionaries as St. Boniface. 
His diocese covered the whole American Continent, 
north of the United States Boundary. Few if any 
even of the Hudson Bay Agents have traveled by 
canoe a greater number of miles than he on his 
episcopal visitations to the wilds of the North West. 

The Cathedral in those good old times was presided 
over by Dr. Mackie, the very heau ideal, in com- 
fortable corpulence, dignity of bearing, and general 
culture, of an English Rector before Pusyism en- 
tered between the old order of things and the new. 



MY FATHER'S FRIENDS 231 

He also has gone to his rest. But as important a 
personage in the Cathedral as the Bishop or the Rec- 
tor, was the organist, dear old Mr. Codman. He was 
built up of nerves. He might have served for Ho- 
garth's enraged musician. I have been with him 
in the organ loft when his exertions at the foot 
pedals shook down the railings and curtains about 
our ears. This added anger to ecstasy, and in 
the fury that followed he wrecked the loft, and dam- 
aged the organ, till pedal after pedal and key after 
key refused to respond to his kicks and his blows. 
I was dismayed but the charity children safe in the 
gallery above us, enjoyed the fun. He was beard- 
less, almost hairless, the veins coursing red across 
his cheeks. "When angry he stamped, and strode 
among his pupils and the dumb pianos, storming at his 
pupils, and threatening corporal violence. When 
pleased his delight was almost as unbounded, and 
his sheer artistic frenzy so carried him away that 
once he kissed before his class a pretty pupil. When 
he laughed every limb and muscle joined in the mer- 
riment, and a joke always turned the tide of his 
anger into laughter; I am ashamed to say that we 
went to class prepared to take advantage of this 
weakness. W^henever we anticipated a storm of our 
own raising, we could always calm the tempest by 
recalling a hon-mot of my father, who passing him 
once when working in his garden, commended him 
for enjoying his ^'otiiim cum digging 'potaties.*' He 
died in 1851, suddenly, without any symptom of 
disease, glad to escape what he dreaded more than 
death, lunacy. He knew that he stood on that un- 



232 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

defined line, between sanity and insanity, a line no 
alienist lias been able to draw. 

One conspicuous figure remains of my father's old 
friends, and he was bis closest and truest for more 
than half a century. He was the only man my father 
looked to for advice and his advice was often fol- 
lowed. I refer of course to Dr. Cook of St. Andrews. 

From the date of his retirement from general 
practice in 1851 till 1866, when he sold the Asylum, 
its management and extension claimed most of his 
time and thought. 

There never was a medical superintendent more 
beloved by his patients than was he. They called 
him in all sincerity their father. When he went 
through the wards they clustered round him like 
children. He had a kind word for all. He pos- 
sessed that rare tact, so essential to all who would 
control the insane, of throwing them off the scent 
of their false fancies, without contradicting and ir- 
ritating them. However irritable he himself might 
be with people accounted sane, he never lost his tem- 
per with those admittedly insane. In his medical 
treatment he put little faith in drugs as specifically 
curative agents in mental disease. His reliance was 
on the vis medicatrix naturae. Strengthened by his 
surgical experience of her marvelous regenerative 
powers in repairing injured organs, he was perhaps 
too skeptical as to the efficacies of drugs in restoring 
disturbed functions. Whether rightly or wrongly, 
he was opposed to their administration when intended 
to act directly on the nervous system. He confined 



MY FATHER'S FEIENDS 233 

his treatment to maintaining his patients in as per- 
fect a state of health as possible, and directing their 
thoughts from their diseased channels by work and 
amusements. The Thursday evening ball began with 
the opening of the Asylum, and he never failed to 
attend it himself. The ball was supplemented latterly 
by an additional weekly entertainment, consisting of 
a concert, a magic lantern exhibition or of theatricals, 
in which some of the patients took part. 

And like all who have had to do with those help- 
less, overgrown children of God's afflicted family, 
he was not only keenly interested in their treatment, 
but deeply attached to many of them. The insane 
often reciprocate ardently kindness and sympathy; 
and by a peculiar perversion of instinct, transfer to 
the guardian, intrusted with their care, the affections 
which they lose for tliose whom they once loved, and 
who by family ties should claim their attachment. 

But of course, as among the men and women who 
are by general consent assigned a place on the ra- 
tional side of that ambiguous boundary, which divides 
society into sane and insane, most are uninterest- 
ing and commonplace, so, among the inmates of an 
asylum, those who display marked characteristics are 
in the great minority. On the other hand not a few, 
especially of the gentler sex, who are subject to attacks 
of periodical mania, rise during the paroxysm to a 
plane of intellectual brilliancy, as well as magnificent 
facial expressiveness, which transforms them into more 
exalted beings than when in their normal condition. 
They do not quite forget the ecstasy, when restored to 
placidity. They even seem sometimes to remember 



234 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

it with regret. One is reminded by these cases of 
the temporary elevation to which passion raises or- 
dinary folk, who are not inmates of an asylum. 

But while commonplace is the rule, the eccen- 
tricity of thought among the clever insane is often 
startling. One of our patients had been a preacher, 
though not of any recognized denomination, and he 
called himself the Prophet of the North. He had 
ui his satchel a number of newspaper clippings, de- 
scribing his adventures. He had girt himself with a 
sword to typify the Sword of the Spirit, and this 
had gotten him occasionally into trouble, though it 
was a very rusty, harmless implement. Then he 
had more than once accepted the call to discuss cer- 
tain religious subjects, at public assemblies, and had 
actually in his innocence taken the invitations lit- 
erally ; and been roughly handled, because he insisted 
on propounding his views— all of which departures 
from conventional usages had landed him in Ward 
No. 1. He did not resent the confinement, but ac- 
cepted it as philosophically as another of his fellow 
patients, who, believing in the rule of the majority, 
recognized that the world thought one way and he 
another, and that numbers being decidedly against 
him, the world very properly used its power to put 
him, where he could not, by any possibility, put the 
world. The Prophet had in his face all the shrewd- 
ness of a Yankee, accentuated by the animation of 
a fanatic; and his sayings were sometimes clever. 
Discussing the history of Abraham, he insisted that 
circumstances altered cases; for Abraham once, con- 
sidering himself under a divine command to com- 



MY FATHER'S FRIENDS 235 

mit murder, was about to kill his son when his hand 
was stayed. The act was accounted to him for right- 
eousness; but if he had lived in these days, what 
would have happened? Sarah would have sworn 
out a warrant, would have had him adjudged insane 
and incarcerated him in an asylum. The intention 
would have been accounted anything but righteousness. 
The comment was made in no irreverent spirit, and it 
conveyed a truth. Again animadverting on the am- 
biguity of philosophical and theological language, I 
recollect his saying that people talked of latent truth 
in the Bible and physicists talked of latent heat in 
a snowball— but how many snowballs would it take 
to heat an oven? 

Another patient, whose great burly figure and 
good-natured, smiling face made him a conspicuous 
personality in our little community, worked in the 
blacksmith shop. He was one of that large class of 
incapables who are neither feeble in mind nor in 
body, and yet lack the initiative which enables them 
to care for themselves in this busy, pushing world. 
There are many of them out of, who would be hap- 
pier and cost the world less were they in, an asylum. 
Poor Curry one luckless day attracted the attention 
of the Commissioners, who considered that if he were 
able to do good blacksmithing for the institution he 
could support himself by his trade, and so he was 
discharged. Ere long the medical superintendent 
of the asylum was called upon to sit on a lunacy 
case. Curry had enlisted in the army, and was 
found so irresponsible to military rule that the army 
officers came to the correct conclusion that the refrac- 



236 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

tory recruit was insane. So he returned, jubilant as 
a school-boy released for his vacation, to the asylum. 
Some time afterwards he disappeared ; no trace could 
be found of him; but after the lapse of about three 
weeks he reappeared, very thin and very tired and 
very hungry, but very happy. He had had a dream 
that there was a certain old lady in New England 
who could tell him something greatly to his advan- 
tage. So off he tramped on foot some one hundred 
and fifty miles into New England. Fairly arrived, 
he met on the public road the very old lady who 
had appeared to him in his dream. He told her 
who he was and of his visions. She listened, pon- 
dered, gave him a good dinner and advised him to 
return by the way he had come. I would have made 
a pilgrimage myself of one hundred and fifty miles 
afoot to have met such a dear, mse old lady! Curry's 
delusions by day or by night never again tempted 
him away from his refuge. 

Criminal lunacy has always been and always will 
be a perplexing branch of the science. There are 
cases which common sense can easily settle— others 
which no sense can satisfactorily solve. There was 
a girl in the asylum, a quiet, very intelligent, mod- 
est creature, committed for drowning her sister's 
child in a well. She had lived till womanhood in 
the world; seen the temptations which beset her sex; 
witnessed the baptism of her sister's child; believed 
it, by falsely interpreting the teaching of her church, 
to be sure of translation at once if sent to heaven 
speedily before it committed actual sin; and there- 
fore she decided to act as intermediary between the 



I 



MY FATHER'S FRIENDS 237 

priest and Paradise by killing it without delay. The 
courts could entertain no doubt as to her merciful 
motive; nevertheless, though she reasoned and acted 
logically from her own premises, she was very prop- 
erly prevented from doing so again. 

A more doubtful acquittal, and yet perhaps as 
righteous a one, was that of old Corrigan. He was 
in a tavern; had drunk, but not to excess. He was 
refused more liquor by his friend, the saloonkeeper, 
and without further provocation he felled him with 
an ax. At all times subsequently to the murder he 
denied the faintest recollection of the act, and by 
no examination or cross-questioning could he be 
brought to commit himself to any admission which 
would imply memory of the occurrence. He was 
turned over to our care, and a more harmless, benevo- 
lent old man never breathed. His affections were di- 
vided between flowers and children. He tended with 
skill and care the former in the asylum windows, and 
as the only children on whom he could expend his 
more than paternal devotion were idiots, he devoted 
his life to the repulsive task of nursing them and re- 
lieving their wants. He knew why he was in durance 
and accepted the terrible inevitableness of lifelong 
imprisonment among the insane without a murmur, 
nor did he ever take advantage of any opportunity 
of escape. 

The great majority of our patients belonged to the 
Roman Catholic Church, which may be one reason 
why the disease so seldom assimied the type of re- 
ligious mania. Pure religion never turned a human 
mind from the paths of sobriety, but those paroxysms 



238 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

of morbid excitement, falsely called religious reviv- 
als, which are supposed to be most successful and 
grateful to the Deity, the greater the number of 
hysterical people who fall down in fits, do induce 
insanity. This form of excitation is not practised 
by the Roman Catholic Church.* But now and then 
we had patients who set an example to their saner 
brethren. There was one staunch old Christian, who, 
scandalized by his fellow-patients gobbling down their 
food without asking a blessing, always stood in his 
place and said a long grace. He as invariably paid 
the penalty of his religion, for the occupants of ad- 
jacent seats, while he was at his devotions, purloined 
some of his dinner. 

I go back every year to see my old friends. Of 
the 800 only two remain, but of the fate of the de- 
parted I feel no anxiety, for the notions entertained 
by peoples whom we count less civilized than our- 
selves, that the insane are the special objects of 
God's kind providence, is assuredly true. 

The asylum is now owned and under the charge 
of the Sisters of Charity. One of our old patients 
was, when we resigned the management, subject to 
fits of periodical mania, which with advancing age 
disappeared. When I called to see my old friends, 
after a parting of nearly twenty years, dear old 
Ellen Cleary fell upon my neck and kissed me. The 
lady superior must have been touched, but the rules 
of her order evidently obliged her to turn her back. 



*Among the great mass of worshippers, though the ecstasy 
of its saints is only another form of this abnormal mental 
condition. 



CHAPTER X 

AS A TEMPERANCE LECTURER 

Though my father held himself aloof from poli- 
tics, he took an active part in the temperance move- 
ment. 

Early in his professional career he was horrified 
by the examples he saw among his friends of the 
degrading effects of intemperance. He was in the 
habit of taking a glass of gin and water every even- 
ing, but, returning from a case of delirium tremens, 
he registered a silent vow to abstain from all alco- 
holic stimulants. During the typhus fever epidemic, 
when his digestion became seriously impaired, he took 
a glass of wine for his dinner, but, barring this one 
exception, he adhered rigidly to his self-imposed 
promise till after his retirement from professional 
life. He was one of the most ardent advocates of 
teetotalism in Father Matthew's day, and insisted 
on laying down for others strict temperance regula- 
tions. 

** During many years,'* he said, **I had charge of 
the Surgical wards of the Marine and Emigrants 
Hospital. For urgent reasons I had obtained the 
passage of a rule prohibiting the use of any intoxi- 



240 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

eating drink in the Hospital, except under the writ- 
ten prescription of the visiting physician. Instant 
discharge was the penalty of its infraction. My reg- 
ular visiting hour during the week was at 10 A. M., 
and on Sunday at 4 P. M. When however a case 
occurred requiring particular attention, I visited it 
at indifferent times. On one such occasion, on enter- 
ing my private room for the purpose of leaving my 
hat and whip, I found the Steward and a Roman 
Catholic clergyman drinking brandy and water. I 
addressed the priest in very plain terms. I dilated 
on the fact that he, the custos morum of the com- 
munity, gave by his example, a sanction to a habit 
which he well knew had demoralized the Hospital 
and was bringing hundreds in the city to misery 
and to an untimely grave. He looked excessively 
indignant; he made no reply, but snatching up his 
hat, he hurriedly left the apartment. 

'^Some years afterwards, after having given a lec- 
ture on temperance and an analysis of the intoxicat- 
ing drinks in common use, I was waited upon by a 
very intelligent looking priest, who introduced him- 
self to me as Mr. Chiniquy, the Cure of Beauport. 
He said that he believed his parish to be the most 
drunken one in lower Canada, and that I would con- 
fer an obligation on him and do good, by giving the 
same lecture and experiments to his people. He re- 
marked to me that he thought I had forgotten the 
occasion of my first interview with him, in the con- 
sulting room of the Marine Hospital. I was sur- 
prised and amused when he told me that he was the 
young priest to whom I had given his first lecture on 



AS A TEMPERANCE LECTURER 241 

total abstinence. He said that at the moment he had 
the greatest difficulty in restraining himself from a 
reply to what he considered an outrageous attack upon 
himself personally, and upon his sacred character 
as a priest. On going up Crown Street, however, he 
said to himself, 'The man is disrespectful, — he is 
however right, and I will never taste intoxicating 
drinks again. ^ He religiously kept his word from 
that moment. I am satisfied that Mr. Chiniquy's ex- 
ertions in the cause of temperance have been the 
means of saving a multitude of souls from perdition, 
and some thousands of bodies from an early grave. * 
*'I have had occasion to admire Mr. Chiniquy's 
pluck and perseverance in the face of difficulties and 
obstacles, which to ordinary men would have been 
insurmountable. After my lecture and experiments 
at the Presbytere, Mr. Chiniquy went to work among 
his parishioners with a will. He preached and ex- 
horted and threatened to bury the bodies of the in- 
temperate in unconsecrated ground among the sui- 
cides and those dying in mortal sin. He did effect 
great and most salutary changes. Among others, he 
rendered travelling on the turnpike safe and pleas- 
ant, which previously, from the recklessness of 
drunken hahitants was extremely dangerous. At one 
time I noticed people in their carts passing along my 



* Father Chiniquy was regarded as the Apostle of Temper- 
ance in Lower Canada, while Cur^ of Kannraska (Kamourasko) 
in 1844 he published a very persuasive plea in favor of tem- 
perance and the organization of local Temperance Societies — 
under the title of Manuel du Eeglement de la Society de 
Temperance. 



242 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

beach, from the town. I could not account for their 
doing so, as there was no track and sometimes very- 
great difficulty and danger from the overflowing of 
the tide. On inquiry I was told that Mr. Chiniquy 
had converted all his parishioners to total abstinence, 
excepting a very few individuals who could not re- 
frain, whenever they went to town. Finding all his 
exhortations, his prayers and his supplications in 
their behalf of no avail, he had come to the conclu- 
sion that they were under the direct dominion of the 
Devil, and that all that could be done for them was 
to pray for them. He therefore directed his parish- 
ioners, whenever they met one of them on the road, 
to offer up a short prayer in their behalf. This 
drove the unfortunate individuals off the road, and 
was the means, or was said to be the means, of their 
ultimate conversion. Soon afterwards Canada was 
favored by a visit of the Roman Catholic Bishop of 
Nancy from France. He was a prelate of high rank 
in the Church, a philosopher, a man of letters and a 
staunch advocate of total abstinence principles. Mr. 
Chiniquy improved the occasion of his visit to 
Canada by inviting him to be present at the erection 
of a monument in Beauport to commemorate the fact 
that there was not one individual in the parish 
known to use intoxicating drinks. The monument 
was inaugurated with great pomp and religious cere- 
monies. It is however a curious psychological faxit 
that now, occasionally, a hahitant, on his return from 
market, sees two monuments, instead of a single one. 
''Some time afterwards Father Chiniquy left Can- 
ade to take the charge of a French colony in one of 



AS A TEMPERANCE LECTURER 243 

the Western States. Since then his conduct, his 
changes of opinion on religious matters and on others, 
are subjects of local history. I have merely to state 
that since my first acquaintance with Mr. Chiniquy I 
have never known him to commit any act or deed, or 
utter anything inconsistent with his character as 
a minister of a Christian Church, and a sincere 
servant of God. It is rather significant that I never 
heard of his having committed any such act or deed, 
until after his change of opinion on religious matters 
and doctrines. 

**In recording these facts and recollections I think 
it is quite proper to subjoin my last correspondence 
with Mr. Chiniquy, and to say that it is interpo- 
lated in this journal and notes, which were written 
while I was confined to bed, with a broken leg. 

'^GlenaUa, May 1875. 
'* My dear Sir:— 

' * Since my accident I have filled up an occasional 
hour in jotting down recollections of my life and of 
the principal persons whom I have met, and been in- 
terested in. A late copy of the Witness has re- 
minded me to send you those of my acquaintance 
and correspondence with you. If you have time and 
patience to read it, return it to me, with any notes 
or corrections you may think it necessary to make. 
*Tempus edax rerum^; It has eaten away my clear 
and distinct memories of the past. I will be glad 
to have them refreshed by you. 

** Yours very truly, 

**(Sd) J. Douglas. 
^'Rev. C. Chiniquy.'* 



244 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

*' Montreal, 22nd May, 1875. 
'*Dr. Douglas: 

"Your kind letter, with your memoirs have been 
handed to me by the Rev. Mr. Campbell, only two 
days ago, on my return here from Illinois. 

" Everything corresponds well with my own memo- 
ries of that time, with the exception that I find in 
my daily memorandums that you had had the kind- 
ness to invite me a good many times to attend the 
autopsies of dead bodies of men and women, in the 
brain, lungs, nerves, etc., etc., of whom you made 
me observe the ravages of alkohol in the human 
frame. You also very kindly put into my hands 
a good number of excellent books, written by the 
most learned men of England, France Germany and 
America, which entirely upset my former views 
about the use of wine, beer, etc. I find in these me- 
moirs that after God it is to you that I owe the 
principles and science and light which the good prov- 
idence of God has allowed me to scatter and sow all 
over Canada. 

*^May the great God who has chosen you as the in- 
strument of his mercies towards me and my dear 
countrj'-men, keep you still many years full of life 
and strength; and may he pour upon you and your 
family most abundant blessings in time and in eter- 
nity. 

''Believe me, 

*'My Dear IVIr. Douglas, 

''Your forever grateful friend, 

"(Sd) C. Chiniquy.^' 




S^c^e^ x^^/^^^^z^ 



AS A TEMPERANCE LECTURER 245 

Father Chiniquy wrote my father again in 1880 as 
follows : 

**Ste. Anne, Kankakee Co., Illinois 
'*Dr. Douglas, 15th October, 1880. 

''Very dear old friend — 

** On my arrival here I have found your kind letter 
of the 30th, inviting me to go to visit you at Phoe- 
nixville. Unfortunately when it came to Philadel- 
phia I was just gone to New York. I am so sorry 
that I have missed the pleasure of seeing you again. 
For, my dear Mr. Douglas, you do not know how 
you are dear to me. After God it is to you that I 
owe the success of my life. It is from you that I 
got the first notion and principles of that temper- 
ance, with the glorious and blessed banners of which 
I have marched in triumph from one end to the other 
of Canada. Never will I forget the learned lessons 
on the injuries done by alcohol in the human frame 
you gave me when dissecting some corpses of drunk- 
ards at the hospital of Marine, nor the admirable and 
scientific experiences you made, during nearly a 
whole week, in the parsonage of Beauport, to show 
to my people that alcohol is a poison. 

*'Nor will I ever forget the tender care you gave 
me when very sick at St. Roche from typhoid fever. 
Nor the friendly rebuke you gave me when you tried 
to show me that my cure was not a miraculous one. 
You may have forgotten all these things, if you did 
not put them in your daily records, as I have done. 
But I will never forget them— they are written in 
my memory, in my heart and in my daily records of 
that time." 



CHAPTER XI 



CONCLUSION 



In his business transactions my father displayed 
a strange mixture of distrust and credulity. He re- 
fused to invest his savings in the ordinary reposito- 
ries, because he had witnessed a few instances of 
breach of trust; but he unhesitatingly invested them 
in enterprises of which he understood absolutely noth- 
ing, on the advice of men whose experience and in- 
telligence did not entitle them to be accepted as 
safe guides. 

A cashier of the Quebec Branch of the City Bank 
had defaulted when my father first had money to 
invest, and this decided him to distrust all banks and 
bank cashiers. In those days the rents of Quebec 
city property paid more than the taxes, and he bought 
houses; but as time passed he remarked the declin- 
ing importance of the city and disposed of them in 
time. He thenceforward invested exclusively in min- 
ing and wild lands. His land speculations, though 
not brilliant, were fairly profitable. He owned the 
whole Township of Dorset, on the Chaudiere, and 
land around Black Lake, which is now the scene of 
active asbestos and chromic iron mining. But his 



248 MY FATHEE'S JOURNAL 

mining operations were without exception disastrous. 
He prosecuted them, nevertheless, with the same de- 
termined energy and fatalistic reliance in his luck 
which characterized all he undertook. As his ven- 
tures were all badly made, they engulfed his whole 
estate and left him without property or resource at 
an age when he could not possibly retrieve his for- 
tunes. He bore his reverses, however, without a 
groan, and, what still more bespoke his manliness, 
without reflection on others. He hoped and believed 
as long as he remained in Canada, but when his 
hopes were finally shattered and his beliefs proved 
themselves groundless, he gave up his property, and, 
what was harder still, his reputation for shrewdness, 
without a murmur. In his later years he bemoaned 
the gradual decline of his mental powers, but never 
the loss of his money. 

He commenced his fatal experiences in mining by 
searching for gold on the Chaudiere. A nugget had 
been really discovered some years before. A woman 
taking a horse to water found another nugget in one 
of the tributaries of the Chaudiere, in the Seigniory 
of St. Francis. This, coming to the notice of Lieut. 
Badderly, of the Royal Engineers, in 1834, he pub- 
lished a description of it in Silliman's Journal. But 
gold mining did not appeal to even the most specula- 
tive till the California gold fever had spread over 
the world like an epidemic and reached Canada. In 
1846 Mr. de Lery obtained a patent, giving him the 
exclusive right to mine for gold within the limits of 
the seigniory. He sold his rights to the Chaudiere 
Mining Company, of which my father was one of the 



CONCLUSION 

principal shareholders, for a royalty, afterwards com- 
muted into a fixed sum. The company, under the 
management of a Mr. Cunningham, spent considerable 
money and recovered some gold at a considerable 
loss on the River Gilbert. My father, instead of 
giving up the enterprise, bought out his fellow share- 
holders. He continued doing some work spasmodic- 
ally, or permitting the habitants to wash the gravels 
on a royalty, till he sold his rights, in 1863, for 
$4,000. No remunerative systematic mining was 
ever done, nor were the placer deposits large enough 
to warrant a large outlay for their economical treat- 
ment. But the gravel in the beds of the two streams, 
the La Plante and the Tuf de Pin, or Gilbert, were in 
places, where the rock ledges dammed the streams, 
extraordinarily rich. I once received, as a 25 per 
cent, royalty, two and a half pounds of gold dust 
from four men who,^ with no other appliances than 
tin pans, had washed at least ten pounds of the 
precious metal out of the bed of the La Plante. 

But copper mining had long before that date sup- 
planted gold mining in my father's estimation. Cop- 
per ore was found on Lot 4 of the Second Range in 
the Township of Liverness, County of Megantic, some 
six years before mining was commenced in 1850. 
The ore was rich enough to tempt the most phleg- 
matic. The Megantic Mining Company was organ- 
ized to acquire those lots and others in the adjacent 
township of New Ireland, and active work was car- 
ried on for some years in both townships. My father 
was the most active member of the company. But 
the masses of rich ore were small and the extensive 



250 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

beds of lean ore were too lean to pay. The Megantic 
Mining Company, however, still exists, and may yet 
be revived. The discoveries subsequently made of 
copper in Leeds were so much more enticing that 
they tempted him on to his financial ruin. The dis- 
covery of these deposits was made in the forties. 
The Lower Canada Mining Company acquired the 
land and did some exploratory work. Li the spring 
of 1853 the famous John Arthur Phillips was sent 
by John Taylor & Son to examine the property, and 
my father and I accompanied him to the mines. His 
report was not favorable enough to induce that cau- 
tious firm to recommend their clients to buy, though 
Phillips was very much impressed with the surface 
indications. The Lower Canada Mining Company 
worked on till 1856, with ever more promising pros- 
pects, shipping small parcels of very rich ore from 
superficial lenses of comparatively small size, 
at which date it was apparently reorganized as 
the Quebec and St. Francis Mining Company. This 
company sold the property in 1858 to the English 
and Canadian Mining Company on the following 
terms: "The original capital of the company is to 
be £40,000. Sterling. The shares in one-half of the 
capital are to be issued to the shareholders of the 
Canadian Company, as fully paid up shares. Out 
of the money raised by the shares in the other half 
of the Capital i4,000. is to be paid to the Directors 
of the Canadian Company, the remaining il6,000. is 
to be the working capital of the Company." This 
insignificant working capital was exhausted in a very 
few years, but the result of work was the opening of 



CONCLUSION 251 

a large bed of ore, supposed to average three per 
cent., and a lode, supposed to be exceedingly ricli— 
the Fanny Eliza Lode. The report of 1862 says: 
*'The funds at the disposal of your Directors being 
so nearly exhausted, it has been their study to sus- 
pend, as far as possible, all work not tending towards 
immediate profit.'* But the results, if not remunera- 
tive, were sufficiently promising to induce a Boston 
firm to attempt to float the Harvey Hill Mining and 
Smelting Company in 1863. The attempt failed, as 
did also the endeavor of the old shareholders to re- 
organize as the London & Quebec Copper Mining 
Company, with a capital of £100,000. Meanwhile 
the company had commenced to accumulate a debt, 
and the English shareholders, like wise business men, 
had decided to pocket their losses and close the mine, 
when my father passed through London on his way 
to Egypt in the winter of 1863-64. Satisfied that 
the mine was all that his fancy and that of Mr. Wil- 
liams, the superintendent, pictured it as being, and 
confident, as usual, in his luck and his judgment, he 
offered the English shareholders to buy all their stock 
at a ridiculous figure and to pay all their debts. 

Up to that date he had put into the enterprise 
more money than was prudent, but not more than he 
could afford to lose. To meet these heavy obliga- 
tions he had to mortgage all his property. Having 
become a majority stockholder, the minority allowed 
him to find the working capital, so that in the course 
of a few years, for the erection of works and as 
losses on operations, he had a claim against the com- 
pany of over a hundred thousand dollars, which 



252 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

claim, of course, the company could not pay. The 
mine was worked continuously, and for several years 
the proceeds, despite the unfavorable transportation 
conditions, covered all working expenses; but they 
never did more. The situation was becoming desper- 
ate when the boom in copper speculation of 1872 
nearly saved him. A firm of brokers bonded the 
property at £60,000 and made a small forfeitable 
payment. The same firm of brokers, unfortunately, 
had also bonded the Ives copper mine in the Province 
of Quebec. Instead of offering the Harvey Hill at 
a fair advance, they consolidated the two and put 
them on the market at £300,000. Just then the fa- 
mous Mr. Huntington, who unearthed the Canadian 
Pacific scandal, was offering his copper mine, near 
the Ives mine, to the British public. He wrote to the 
papers, throwing doubt on the value of the consoli- 
dated property. The stock had been subscribed, but 
the board wisely decided to send an independent min- 
ing engineer to Canada to examine and report on the 
Harvey Hill and Ives mines. He reported favorably 
on the Harvey Hill, but as emphatically condemned 
the Ives, and therefore the shareholders received back 
their subscriptions. The directors thereupon at- 
tempted to float a company to purchase Harvey Hill 
alone, but the boom had burst. They, however, got 
up a company which provided a small working capi- 
tal—the Harvey Hill Copper Company, Ltd. But 
the money was very injudiciously spent, and the com- 
pany in course of time went out of existence. Mean- 
while my father had turned over his entire interest 
in the mine to his creditors, and had succeeded in 



• 



CONCLUSION 253 

selling his township of Dorset and other lands at a 
figure which enabled him to liquidate the mortgages 
upon them. That done, he consented to accompany 
me, in 1875, to the States, where I had secured a 
situation as superintendent of a small metallurgical 
company in Pennsylvania. He had spent half a 
century in Quebec. He lived for eleven years longer 
in Phoenixville, Pa., and New York. 

We took with us a carload of our old belongings 
from Glenalla— a few pictures, two statues by Ran- 
dolph Rogers, which could not have been sold in 
Quebec, and my father's Egyptian collection.* The 
old stone house which we occupied in Phoenixville 
had a glazed veranda, in which the mummies and 
other curiosities were exposed, and where my father 
made and painted plaster casts from the squeezes 
we had taken for sculptures on the temple walls of 
Egypt. The mummies were popularly supposed to be 
the bodies of our ancestors, which we religiously car- 
ried about with us. They inspired such awe that, 
though burglaries were common, our house was never 
broken into. 

My father was the most popular man in the little 
town. He contributed recollections of his travels to 
the local newspaper; spun travelers' tales by the 
yard, and was everybody's friend. His powers of 
narrative never failed him. Though his memory 
became defective, he could always fill the gaps by 
drawing upon his imagination. He left all care with 
his shattered fortune behind him in Canada, and the 



*The statues and the Egyptian collection are in tlie Metro- 
politan Museum, New York City. 



254 MY FATHER'S JOURNAL 

last years of his life were peaceful and happy. He 
was prostrated by a stroke of paralysis on April 
10th, 1886, and died on April 14th, without recover- 
ing consciousness. He rests in the cemetery at Mount 
Hermon, Quebec, which he was instrumental in 
creating. 

THE END 



<l 




LgRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 216 435 7 



